#155: Jazmin Cano on Educational VR startup Discovr

Jazmin-Cano Jazmin Cano is a 3D artist at the educational VR startup Discovr. Discovr was within the first class of companies within the Rothenberg Ventures River acceleration program. They are creating immersive education experiences that focus on experiential discovery, immersive environments, and engaged learning. Their vision statement explains how the immersive nature of VR can help provide a much more rich and vivid learning experience:

The benefits of experiential education have been validated by integration of ‘field trips’ modern curriculums and the preservation of museums around the world. Many studies have shown that people form better memories through real life experiences and interactions, rather than reading about them from a piece of paper. We believe that this is a cue for virtual reality.

Our mission is to challenge the ways in which we digest educational content. Our products are pioneer applications in what we believe will eventually become an entire market of educational content for the burgeoning virtual reality industry.

In this interview, Jazmin talks about some of the projects that they’re working on including Discovr Rome and a periodic table educational experience. She shares some of her lessons learned, how she draws on inspiration from Ready Player One’s Oasis, and what she is looking forward to the most within virtual reality.

It’s clear to me that Jazmin has a lot of passion for the future potential of VR, and I’m really excited to see what role Discovr will play in the educational VR space.

For more information, you can check out Discovr Labs’ website or check out UploadVR’s interview with the founder Josh Madonado.

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Rough Transcript

[00:00:05.412] Kent Bye: The Voices of VR Podcast.

[00:00:12.032] Jazmin Cano: I'm Jasmine. I'm the lead tech artist at Discover Labs. And at Discover Labs, we are changing the future of education. So we're hoping to put students into HMDs and take classes on field trips, for example, to ancient Rome. That way, they can actually walk around and see Rome, how it existed back then, and hear people chatting about what's happening in those days and see the architecture as it stood. And so we hope to quiz them afterwards. questions and stuff for them to answer and then have them hopefully learn better that way rather than just reading from a page. So that's an example of one of the experiences. Right now we're hoping to make plenty more so we can have an actual school type of place to go to and you can choose which topic you want to learn about and then experience that world based on the subject you're learning in school. Right now we have a few partner universities around the world that are actually going to put it in the classroom so we can start testing soon, this fall actually. I know I volunteered at a youth center where I live here in the San Francisco Bay Area, and I'll be taking some of what we've made to children for after school programs, so these would be like teenagers. And mostly what we're doing is focused on K through 12, so right now it's mainly older teens and university students.

[00:01:30.193] Kent Bye: I see. So maybe you could talk a bit about, you know, being a part of River and, you know, how that came about and then how that is helping, you know, accelerate this process.

[00:01:40.360] Jazmin Cano: Well, I came about personally because the programmers at Discover needed an artist and two of them happened to know me and they liked my work. So they let me know that opportunity was there. So I was fortunate enough to be chosen. River has totally helped us out because they've given us a lot of opportunities to show what we're doing. For example, being here at SUER is like so amazing. Everyone's going to see what we're doing and demo everything. They also gave us the opportunity to demo at Founder Field Day at AT&T Park, which is, that was amazing. It was like we were living in Silicon Valley's Season 2 opener. But yeah, they always have talks there, and they're always really supportive and making sure everyone's creative juices are flowing. And they have people talk there and just help guide us along the way.

[00:02:25.518] Kent Bye: Cool. And so in terms of education in VR, are you taking previous research and how people learn, and what is that process, and what are those types of theories that you're integrating into these VR experiences?

[00:02:40.238] Jazmin Cano: So the way we're adding the process of learning into what we're doing, we're mainly talking to a Stanford University professor. So he's guiding us a lot on how to teach people and getting feedback on what we're doing based on the topics. Yeah, I don't know, that's Josh who meets with him, but he always comes back with feedback and we change things. Like, for example, making sure we talk to people in Rome so characters make eye contact with us and chat as we look at them. If we walk away, they stop talking. So, you know, you're actually having a conversation about the history rather than, again, reading from a page or being just read to.

[00:03:15.892] Kent Bye: And so a lot of the dialogue is coming from these virtual humans within the experience then? Yes. Okay. And maybe you can talk a bit about some of these other experiences that you've also been working on here.

[00:03:27.468] Jazmin Cano: Okay, so another one we just created is called Chemistry Foundations, where this is an actual lab that you're standing in, and you have the periodic table of elements, and you have seats around you for your other classmates to learn with you. And what we want to do here is be able to interact with different elements by selecting whichever ones you want, and then seeing what different combos you can make to create molecules. So right now we We have water available for you to create. So you get taught about what happens when you select these elements and how many you need to create water, for example. So then the player is allowed to tap on however many and whichever many elements they want to create these things. And then your result is what you've made. So right now we have water that you can make. So if you pick the right amount, you see water in front of you, and then you can celebrate.

[00:04:15.866] Kent Bye: Nice. I understand that being a part of River is a certain amount of time. Maybe you could talk about what's that been like? How long are you there? And then once you leave, what happens after that?

[00:04:27.496] Jazmin Cano: I came on a little late, so I've been there since March. I don't know when it started. After this, Discover is actually from Canada, Toronto, Canada. He's going to go back there for a while, and he has another team in Toronto working on Discover. So when he goes back and they're working on stuff, I'll stay here and continue creating the 3D art for it. We're going to continue working on it, building out these experiences, and bringing out this content to keep on testing with students. Yeah, what happens next? I don't know, we'll see.

[00:05:00.016] Kent Bye: And what type of lessons learned have you learned in terms of making art for virtual reality experiences?

[00:05:08.353] Jazmin Cano: Oh, I learned so much. So I mainly model 3D environments. But because this is a startup and it's River, we're so excited just to create so much to share with everyone. I've learned a lot myself going from 3D models to like even organic modeling. So characters and animals and then rigging. A lot more work in game engines like Unity and Unreal. I also learned how to speak to people more because I have to talk about what we do here. So that's been exciting. Learning a lot of optimization for sure because the Samsung Gear VR is super popular now. A lot of people have it. we're building for it, which means we're a little more confined than if we were to build for a powerful PC. So it's a lot about bringing our creativity down to a more polishable scale. That's been a huge lesson. Making sure everything looks good and it works in VR so no one gets nauseous or their eyes hurt or anything.

[00:06:07.247] Kent Bye: And what type of experiences do you want to have in VR?

[00:06:10.868] Jazmin Cano: So many. Well, for sure, I want to live the Oasis, Ready Player One. I want to hug people in VR and high-five people. I'm a huge gamer, so any game in VR is going to be amazing. I want to have experiences where I can practice doing interviews. That would be nice and helpful.

[00:06:32.485] Kent Bye: Nice. And finally, what do you see as the ultimate potential of VR and what it might be able to enable?

[00:06:40.840] Jazmin Cano: I believe it has the potential to change how we think about everything. For example, game design, it's so different now because you're in it for sure rather than, you know, thinking, should we do third person over the shoulder, you know, like side scroller, vertical scroller. That's really going to put people in this first-person position and then trying to immerse them way more than before. Even with cinema, the directors are going to have to think differently because the viewer is in it rather than seeing it on a 2D screen from a couch or a chair. So yeah, mainly storytelling, game design. It has the potential to just make our brains flip all over and try to create the next cool thing. So I feel like it's really going to increase the creativity in everyone. It's pretty much forcing us to.

[00:07:30.420] Kent Bye: Great. Awesome. Anything else that's left unsaid that you'd like to say?

[00:07:34.840] Jazmin Cano: I love VR, and I'm so happy I'm living in this time right now where history is being changed. Yeah, that's all.

[00:07:43.547] Kent Bye: Awesome, thank you.

[00:07:44.387] Jazmin Cano: Oh, God, thank you.

[00:07:46.448] Kent Bye: And thank you for listening. If you'd like to support the Voices of VR podcast, then please consider becoming a patron at patreon.com slash voices of VR.

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