Guests at Mote Marine Laboratory and Aquarium can explore the depths of the ocean in “Swimming with Humpbacks,” as part of their Blue Ocean Series. Developed by Immotion, guests can wear virtual reality (VR) headsets that play 360 video while sitting in pods that sway in sync with the experience.
“As we develop our business model, we will focus more of our efforts on perfecting our VR cinema pods for high footfall destination locations such as Aquatic Centres and zoos,” Rod Findley, group managing director at Immotion told eeDesignIt. “Our concession model offers a compelling and flexible opportunity for high traffic ‘edutainment’ destinations, such as aquariums, zoos and science centers. We believe this is a global opportunity and will be putting considerable focus into growing the installed base and developing our offering over the coming months.”
Visitors can dive in from 10 AM to 4:30 PM everyday at Mote for $6 per person. Using VR as a learning tool is proven to be an engaging tactic, as researchers at the University of Maryland have discovered. Augmented reality (AR) has also seen widespread usage of educational content, as the JFK Presidential Library Foundation celebrates the 50th anniversary of the Apollo moon landing with their own AR app.
