Virtual energy center for teaching alternative energy technologies

We overview the Virtual Energy Center, a VR environment that models a real energy facility to enable virtual field trips and self-guided exploration. Our goal is to take advantage of emerging low-cost hardware and improved networks to provide students who cannot travel to the real facility with alternatives that provide comparable educational benefit. The virtual facility is augmented by visual guides and educational content to teach students about concentrating solar power technology. A teacher physically near the student can appear in the scene via depth camera imagery, allowing the teacher to walk around in a classroom setting and assist students. Additionally, work-in-progress is streaming the depth images over a network to allow students to virtually meet expert guides from the real facility. We summarize these features, some interaction-related challenges, and ongoing testing.