The Wiry Irishman
Member
I wanted to share an idea I've been rolling around in my head for a week or so. Its a combination of my two most frequent campus acitivities, the gun club, and Virtual Reality research.
One of the biggest sources of income for my college gun club is something we call a "safety day." Dorm floors, frat/sororities, and other student organizations bring people in, we give them a safety briefing, tell them how to shoot, then let them borrow a gun and a box of .22 to put downrange. For the club member that run the events, they are pure hell. The vast majority of the people that show up for the safety days have never shot before, so we get a lot of nerve-wracking newbie errors, despite the safety briefing. In order of frequency they are:
Muzzling the line (usually when looking at a jammed pistol)
Finger on the trigger when it shouldn't be.
Missing the 5' tall bullet trap and hitting the backboard. (failure to grasp site picture concepts)
Our first safety day of the year is coming up soon.
I also work at Purdue's virtual reality research center, specializing in CAD-to-VR migration and CAD interaction inside virtual environments. For those of you not familiar with the technology, a quick description of the facilities and how the technology works. I mainly use a Fakespace Flex, essentially half a cube, with an 8' by 10' screen to the user's right, front, and left, and one under their feet. One contiguous image is projected across all the screens. The image is projected in stereo, in affect, two images at once, the perspective of each adjusted to correspond with the right and left eyes. By wearing special glasses, only one images reaches each eye, and your brain combines them as it would anything else you see. The result is completely realistic three dimensionality, with images popping off the screen and descending away in space. Words cannot properly describe the phenomenon, but the first time you see it, you'll try to reach out and grab the objects that seem to be floating before your eyes. Interaction with VR is achieved most simply by a "wand" - a gizmo that looks like a combination between an xbox controller and a tv remote. It tracks its position and orientation very precisely using ultrasonic triangulation.
My idea is this: why not create a 3D model of a range, attach a model of a pistol to the position of the wand so the user appears to be holding it, (the wand has a trigger on the bottom, so it would match up fairly well) and add some code that would alert the user via audio alarm when the muzzle was pointed in an unsafe direction? It would even be fairly simple with the use of a head-mounted tracking device to check whether or not the user has an accurate sight picture. Although my workplace does not have a functioning pair, there are gloves a user can wear that are able to track individual finger positions, and could be used to monitor trigger safety. Wouldn't this be a great way to teach new shooters the basics in a hands-on way without the potential safety risks?
I know this wouldn't be practical at the moment, considering the display hardware, interactivity devices, and the computers that run them cost about $1 million and is about as portable as the building its inside, but this a project I could easily accomplish in my free time, and may start working on just for fun. Plus its just a nifty idea. I think the technology would have little or no use for tactical training or marksmanship, but I think it would be a great application for basic safety instruction before the real trip to the range. I've noticed a lot of people on here are CCW trainers and other sorts of firearm instructors and probably have a great deal more experience than I do when it comes to teaching others about firearms use. What do you think about my idea? Good, Bad, no substitute for real hands-on experience? Any ideas about further features to add to the program?
One of the biggest sources of income for my college gun club is something we call a "safety day." Dorm floors, frat/sororities, and other student organizations bring people in, we give them a safety briefing, tell them how to shoot, then let them borrow a gun and a box of .22 to put downrange. For the club member that run the events, they are pure hell. The vast majority of the people that show up for the safety days have never shot before, so we get a lot of nerve-wracking newbie errors, despite the safety briefing. In order of frequency they are:
Muzzling the line (usually when looking at a jammed pistol)
Finger on the trigger when it shouldn't be.
Missing the 5' tall bullet trap and hitting the backboard. (failure to grasp site picture concepts)
Our first safety day of the year is coming up soon.
I also work at Purdue's virtual reality research center, specializing in CAD-to-VR migration and CAD interaction inside virtual environments. For those of you not familiar with the technology, a quick description of the facilities and how the technology works. I mainly use a Fakespace Flex, essentially half a cube, with an 8' by 10' screen to the user's right, front, and left, and one under their feet. One contiguous image is projected across all the screens. The image is projected in stereo, in affect, two images at once, the perspective of each adjusted to correspond with the right and left eyes. By wearing special glasses, only one images reaches each eye, and your brain combines them as it would anything else you see. The result is completely realistic three dimensionality, with images popping off the screen and descending away in space. Words cannot properly describe the phenomenon, but the first time you see it, you'll try to reach out and grab the objects that seem to be floating before your eyes. Interaction with VR is achieved most simply by a "wand" - a gizmo that looks like a combination between an xbox controller and a tv remote. It tracks its position and orientation very precisely using ultrasonic triangulation.
My idea is this: why not create a 3D model of a range, attach a model of a pistol to the position of the wand so the user appears to be holding it, (the wand has a trigger on the bottom, so it would match up fairly well) and add some code that would alert the user via audio alarm when the muzzle was pointed in an unsafe direction? It would even be fairly simple with the use of a head-mounted tracking device to check whether or not the user has an accurate sight picture. Although my workplace does not have a functioning pair, there are gloves a user can wear that are able to track individual finger positions, and could be used to monitor trigger safety. Wouldn't this be a great way to teach new shooters the basics in a hands-on way without the potential safety risks?
I know this wouldn't be practical at the moment, considering the display hardware, interactivity devices, and the computers that run them cost about $1 million and is about as portable as the building its inside, but this a project I could easily accomplish in my free time, and may start working on just for fun. Plus its just a nifty idea. I think the technology would have little or no use for tactical training or marksmanship, but I think it would be a great application for basic safety instruction before the real trip to the range. I've noticed a lot of people on here are CCW trainers and other sorts of firearm instructors and probably have a great deal more experience than I do when it comes to teaching others about firearms use. What do you think about my idea? Good, Bad, no substitute for real hands-on experience? Any ideas about further features to add to the program?
