Our Virtual Reality with Dr. Amanda Powell

Join Kosta and his guest: Dr. Amanda Powell, Producer at iCube; an educational resource located inside Tennessee Technological University that is carefully crafting solutions for economic, community, and academic experiences in virtual reality.

Better Together with Kosta Yepifantsev is a product of Morgan Franklin Media and recorded in Cookeville, TN.

Find Out More About Dr. Powell and iCube:
https://www.tntech.edu/icube/

Find out more about Kosta and all the ways we're better together:
http://kostayepifantsev.com/

Transcript

Amanda Powell: 0:01

And just having to think in 360 is what you're doing like constantly when you're developing, you're not thinking like, Oh, these, this is the foreground, this is what they're focused on. You also have to be thinking about everything that they're not looking at directly because they eventually will turn around and see what's behind the people making VR the people willing to have VR in their business in their classroom. That's a very creative, innovative mind.

Morgan Franklin: 0:25

Welcome to Better Together with Kosta Yepifantsev, a podcast on parenting business and living life intentionally. We're here every week to bring you thoughtful conversation, making your own path to success, challenging the status quo, and finding all the ways we're better together. Here's your host, Kosta Yepifantsev.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 0:44

Hey, y'all, this is Kosta. And today, I'm here with my guest, Dr. Amanda Powell, producer at iCube, an educational resource located inside Tennessee Technological University that is carefully crafting solutions for economic community and academic experiences in virtual reality. Amanda, thank you for joining us today. To start out, will you give us an overview of what iCube is and how you started working with this office?

Amanda Powell: 1:12

Yeah, so I cube is it stands for imagine, inspire and innovate. It's like AI to the third power. And I'm always like, Shouldn't that be iCube? But it's fine. It's fine. So it originally started as the Business Media Center about like 30 plus years ago, part of the College of Business was in the College of Business. And then we added VR and moved it over to the library to make it more interdisciplinary, accessible to all campus. So yeah, I got started in a very strange way. I graduated from Tennessee Tech, moved home didn't know what I wanted to do. And I started working at a radio station as a mascot up frog mascot, specifically

Kosta Yepifantsev: 1:47

the suit.

Amanda Powell: 1:48

Yeah, yeah. It's, it's strange. So I did that. And then one of my professors said, Hey, you have mass scouting experience. There's a position open at Tech to be a booster seat and seatbelt safety mascot all the otter and our office does that they started him like years and years ago. So I was the East Tennessee Aliaga coordinator did that for a bit. And then I moved back here. And I always wanted to be back in Cookeville. So it was really nice to move back. You

Kosta Yepifantsev: 2:16

know, iCube just seems kind of like it's a catch all, you know, like, it's obviously very business oriented. But I mean, to make the pivot to virtual reality, was that an intentional change? Like, did they realize, okay, like, we have to specialize in one thing, and so we're going to specialize in virtual reality at IQ.

Amanda Powell: 2:33

It was an interesting switch, there was kind of a whole new batch of vice presidents. I was like, VPS, Vice President at Tennessee Tech. And the way it was explained to me because I kind of moved here as all that was transitioning. And they were like, Where should we put a virtual reality center, and they saw Business Media Center and said, You guys, I think that's where we should do it. It's great business tool, too. So yeah, it became a thing. I mean, I still think we're the only ones making it on campus. Currently, more people are adopting it. But yeah, so we still do all of our traditional marketing, traditional social media, business technologies. But we added this and it was it was an interesting change, for sure.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 3:11

And so virtual reality, which I'm fascinated by, by the way, it's been around since 1968. And it started at Tennessee Tech at iCube in 2015. So what is the goal of having virtual reality at the iCube center,

Amanda Powell: 3:29

we just want to promote emerging business technologies. So that was a big tool that came around the very first few years, we did way too many, if you asked me, simulations, we just kept spitting them out. And then since then, we've been able to kind of like narrow our focus and do like one big project a year, it seems. So we've been able to kind of like dial it down like fine tune what we're doing, and the technology is advanced to make it a lot easier to make. So it's definitely been growing thing that we've grown to only doing one or two. So it's strange,

Kosta Yepifantsev: 4:02

I think in a lot of times when you're doing something that's so new, you know, and really, I mean, the technology hasn't evolved significantly, since I'd say probably 2015 in the sense that, like, the headsets are obviously everywhere now, right? But nobody is literally being like spinal tap into like an alternate universe, right? So we're not quite there yet. But what I mean is you have to start casting a wide net to see what you're good at. Right? And then you narrow down and you specialize onto something. And I want to ask you, because you received a doctorate with a focus on virtual reality and experimental learning. So can you share some examples of projects or research that you've been involved with that highlight the transformative potential of VR?

Amanda Powell: 4:48

Yeah, so I'll kind of start with my my dissertation was in exceptional learning literacy program, so I like books, and that's what my original degree was in education. I made a virtual reality. stimulation for The Great Gatsby, a walkthrough of the mansion with a voiceover like, that's what I made. I had a lot of help from people at IQ. But I spent a lot of hours like just fine tuning this because that's not my background. And that's one of the cool things I'll say about virtual reality is that I made it. I'm an English major, and I made a virtual reality simulation with help. But there are a bunch of tools out there. So anyway, made that wanted to take it into a classroom and see if students liked The Great Gatsby better after they experienced the simulation and had kind of like a more immersive experience of the book. And I ended up restarting my whole dissertation halfway through and instead kind of focused on like, what are the implications with virtual reality and education? Does it take away does it add what bad could come from it? Technically, my dissertation title was like Frankenstein's monster at Gatsby's party, it was a more focus on what can technology what more questions do we need to ask before we start implementing this heavily?

Kosta Yepifantsev: 5:55

And so just to clarify, obviously, Great Gatsby is phenomenal. I mean, F Scott Fitzgerald, probably of all the books that I read in high school, Great Gatsby was in the top three that I actually enjoyed reading. Yeah. And then being turned into a movie Leonardo DiCaprio is like my favorite actor of all time. And all I want to do is just be Leonardo DiCaprio and The Great Gatsby like life goal number one, when I know that I've made it, I'm going to be Leonardo DiCaprio and a full talks with a glass of champagne extended to my beautiful bride, Jessica, who will also go by the name of Daisy. But like, when you say V are in the form of The Great Gatsby, would they put goggles on and kind of like walk around the mansion. And so as they're reading like a chapter in the book, they can then experience it in virtual reality.

Amanda Powell: 6:50

That was the goal. So I took lines directly from the book, I purchased like a mansion that had already been built. I think it was actually a hotel lobby,

Kosta Yepifantsev: 7:00

but I like tweaked in the metaverse. It was

Amanda Powell: 7:03

what was it called? It was like the Unity Asset Store. Like there's people out there just making things for you to buy and just put in to virtual reality. Yeah, a lot of our simulations are custom graphics. But I was like, I'm not gonna build myself a mansion or ask anybody to do it for me. So I just bought that I bought like pictures for the wall. Like I bought people to stand around, I bought a piano to play like music from I used one of the songs that they referenced in the book to like be playing in the background. So it was fun. I mean, it was fun to make it was excruciating, ly time consuming and annoying at times, but the result was a mansion that it was actually on a track. So instead of letting them free roam, it just moves you through. It's kind of like a slow moving ride. But that's also because we were taking into consideration things like people would get nauseous in VR, when it first started, that was a big block before it became consumer ready. So we had to implement when when you would put the headset on and test it out. Something as simple as turning a corner could make you nauseous. So then like we would talk as an office, how do I make people not throw up when they play this? Yeah. And they were like, how about blink. So it literally like fades out and fades back in and you're facing the right direction? And just things like that. We were learning as we went to because we hadn't made a simulation like that. And what year was this? This was 2017 2018. Maybe? Yeah, so it was right after the consumer headsets had come out. And we already made a ton of simulations, but nothing that puts you on a track like

Kosta Yepifantsev: 8:33

that. When kids used it. Did it help them retain the information better?

Amanda Powell: 8:38

That was what I was hoping to study. Okay, I ended up stopping before I got to that. I was more interested in wanting them to enjoy it because I actually hated the Great Gatsby the first time I read it. I did why did I think it was the way it was taught to me I was like not everything is a metaphor Come on. Maybe the flower with maybe the light was just green because it was green, which is hilarious. Because I love metaphors now like every simulation, like I'm sure we'll talk about it. But I tried to put metaphors into every simulation we do now. But when I read it, I hated it. And I was like maybe people would like it if they did VR. But what was interesting is it was the first time a lot of these kids had even put a headset on because it was new. And so it was like their first experience. And I was like I'm so sorry, your first experience is mine. Like some you could have probably done something much cooler in VR for the first time. But they put the headset on and they played it and I started doing some interviews and then switched it to like let's talk about what could have gone wrong. Could I've ruined their experience with a Great Gatsby instead. And it was more of like a thought process of Yeah, what are we doing

Kosta Yepifantsev: 9:41

mean before we move on to the other fields of study? Like theoretically though, if this was an application for education, and you have a background in literacy training, would VR help students retain the information Theoretically,

Amanda Powell: 9:56

yes, I definitely think so. There's so much it just it all. altered your brain like I mean, for better or for worse, you're in a simulation, you feel like you're there like I call it virtual muscle memory like you've been in this house before? Yeah, I definitely think it would, it would and that should be studied. And maybe that's something I should do in the future is go back to it and actually study it.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 10:15

So iCube has made significant contributions to fields such as health visualization, traffic safety, education, and environmental experiences. Will you walk us through the process of designing and implementing these campaigns and how they work in real life,

Amanda Powell: 10:33

we basically have two types of clients, one client knows what they want from the beginning. And it's up to us to figure out how to implement it. But a majority of our clients come with a problem. So I said earlier, our logo is imagined, inspire and innovate. I've been trying to like secretly change it to creative solutions to traditional problems, because what people come to us with our problems, and they're asking us to create the solution. And sometimes it's VR, sometimes it's not. But what it would look like if they came to us. One of our examples is the Tennessee aquarium, we've done a lot of work with them. And they were our very first VR experience. So they knew what they wanted. They wanted a simulation that demonstrates like the effects of pollution on an environment, so a river ecosystem, they wanted it to be local. So we designed these local fish to Chattanooga, the conasauga River, they said, We want it to be you're floating around a river that kind of lasts forever, and you're seeing all these fish. Our very first problem was, how do you make a river lasts forever? I'm not joking. Like it was 30 minutes of like, how are we going to make a river last forever. And what we decided was, Oh, it's a circle. And you just don't know it's a circle, you're seeing the same logs over and over, but you're not really registering that you're in a circle, because you can't just make a simulation that goes on forever. So problem solving, like that is fun, like internally, but then our client would say, we want this fish this fish this plant, we actually because we're at Tennessee Tech, we can get environmental science majors involved. So we had them Be like, Hey, what plants are native to Tennessee, they would pull up the plant, they'd give it to our artists, our artists would create that plant and then they place it in the environment. And then our programmer would say, okay, the conasauga log approach needs to die in quotes when this type of pollution is entered, but not the cat fish. So then there's a whole we've created a list of flip this fish don't flip this fish. Like, are you guys like coding all of this? Yeah, yeah. So everything in our office that we've created has been custom art did custom animated and custom programmed. It makes some beautiful simulations. But it also kind of ties us down to what resources do we have, what talent do we have, and we've gone through rounds of only having student talent. And then we've also gone through rounds of having full time people working on this. So it's kind of just like, ebbed and flowed what works best. what would work best best, in my opinion, would be one full time programmer, one full time artist, and then a team of students that are learning because they can bring new ideas, but they're also learning so they kind of need that guidance to make sure like, perfect.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 13:02

So as they're going through this simulation, what type of feedback did you get when people see the significant effects, negative effects of pollution?

Amanda Powell: 13:10

It was one of our very first experiences, and they they're like, oh, what fish is that? Somebody says, Oh, that's a shark. And we're like, it's a river. It's not a shark. But honestly, like, people would get so immersed and feel like they're swimming, they'd be like, Oh, I'm in the water, even seeing the conservation thing became honestly like an afterthought. And that's like big in education, too. I think the simulation is a talking point, like it is a starting point of conversation. Like you can't replace the actual conservation experts or the educators. So I mean, they were like, Oh, I didn't know a riparian buffer would be better than a porous driveway. And I'm like, these are words that I learned today. So it is interesting, and you do get inspired to start talking about things.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 13:55

So when you think about VR, right, so it is like a alternate universe. I mean, I believe that the metaverse, you know, you're talking about people building houses, creating communities. There was a documentary on HBO Max, I think it's like how to find love in the metaverse or something like that. And like, literally, there's communities of people who find true meaningful love in virtual reality. Yeah. Do you consider people that are in VR to be like the ultimate creatives? Because they're not just building content for the real world? They're building a completely new world?

Amanda Powell: 14:31

Yeah. I mean, you have to have a very specific type of mind and thought process when you make it. Even when you think about what you're making. This is going to sound very silly, but we get clients and they say, We want VR and I'm like, what you're describing do you have to turn around at all? Like if you don't have to turn around, it's an app and just having to think in 360 is what you're doing like constantly when you're developing. You're not thinking like, Oh, these, this is the foreground this is what they're focused on. You also have to be thinking about everything that they're not looking at your actly because they eventually will turn around and see what's behind the people making VR the people willing to have VR in their business in their classroom. That's a very creative, innovative mind. Yeah.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 15:12

So is there any? Is it a technical mind? Or is it a creative mind? What are the common specifications of somebody that enjoys building simulations in VR,

Amanda Powell: 15:25

um, I have two very specific people in my mind. One is an artist and one is a programmer. And in our office that has been one of the fun challenges is getting the artists in the programmers to communicate in the same way that's actually been a lot of my job is kind of like the Hey, guys, let's all work together as a team and not one punch each other. But it is a very technical discipline mine on the programmer side. And I would say discipline is like the I will work this problem till I solve it. That's what you want in a VR program where because there are still so many challenges, because while it's exploded recently, there are still some like technical design elements in the programming that you have to really think think through, like even just thinking of the circle for the river that lasts forever. I mean, you have to be thinking of the next problem.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 16:12

What is the next step for VR, though? Like, are you guys waiting on quantum computing before you can actually create the next step of virtual reality? Do you need more processing power, I mean, what's holding up us being able to literally tap into our brains using neural link and putting on a VR headset and actually being immersed? I hope none of my kids listen to this episode. But like if one of my kids wants to, like teleport themselves to the roadblocks platform that they love playing on, and actually play and feel and be in the moment, like, what's stopping us from getting there?

Amanda Powell: 16:48

There are people that say it's already here in certain areas, you know, but I think like consumers, like the general consumer, I think of Ready Player One, which is Yeah, right. Move. Yes. Yes. So the main things they have right now that they don't, that we don't have, but is coming is like the haptic feedback of like, the suit the gloves, like, all of that is coming. I mean, I know the gloves are coming. I know those are. Yeah, isn't that crazy?

Kosta Yepifantsev: 17:15

It's gonna be so awesome. It's

Amanda Powell: 17:17

gonna be terrifying and awesome. That that and then just an omnidirectional treadmills. So those I know those exist, and not everybody has those. But being able to just walk around in place and do whatever you want, like those two elements, like making it physically feel like you're there, I think, is what we're lacking. And I do think all of that is coming.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 17:37

Do you think iCube is gonna get it first before anybody else in Cookeville does.

Amanda Powell: 17:41

So there is another lab on campus that has a I think it started at and I could be wrong, but it's called the vision lab in the College of Education, actually, we created a behavioral education experience where you are classroom management, that's what I was trying to think, where you get to witness a teacher educator practicing behavior modifications at a classroom. So we helped create that simulation. And I think he actually put in for an omni track treadmill a long time ago, and I think it kept getting delayed, delayed delayed. So I don't know if he has it yet. But I do know, it's been in the works for at least five years. Wow. Yeah.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 18:16

So I'm going to ask you about digital media in kind of interactive entertainment. But before I do that, I do want to kind of speak on the business applications that I envision VR to solve, but at the end, I want to ask you kind of what your take is on it. Because when you mentioned that sometimes kids as they're experiencing virtual reality, or even with the Tennessee aquarium, they don't actually grasp the purpose and the concept of why this application has been created. And they just enjoy it because it's fun and cool. So my experience with virtual reality as it pertains to business is a lot of simulations in the form of trainings. So you can you can hire and train more people without having to hire more people to train those individuals. But as they're going through the training, are they actually retaining the information? Or are they just like, Ooh, this is so neat, you know, and I like this, but it's not going to sort of sink in, in the same way that you know, a human being training another human being would be,

Amanda Powell: 19:21

I would love to think that we're never going to fully replace human interactions, because it's scary. But I do know, there's a thing that I think I've mentioned it, I call it the virtual muscle memory, there's probably somebody that's created a, you know, an actual term for this. But like forklift training, for some reason, forklift training kept coming up to us in our office, and they're saying, like, you have to have a whole factory area space for this. There's one person per forklift, honest, you know, so it's like constant training. And I know that was a big problem. And they kept telling us how many issues it would solve if we could do it in VR. And I think they eventually did find a company to do it because as it takes more, you know, like technical specifications, and we felt comfortable doing, but I mean business training. That is, I think the number one application and I think people in business are more willing to put money towards it then specifically for like education and

Kosta Yepifantsev: 20:15

it may not be applicable to maybe like the millennial generation, like people over the age of 30. They may not, you know, jazz, or jive, I'm sorry with it, as well as like people that are in high school right now. You know, I mean, my kids, they got a VR headset when they were five years old. They play games on it, they like the lightsaber game, they play the the football game, and I mean, I'll put it on, I usually get injured at some point whenever I got a VR headset on. But all the things, I got video games, when I was five years old, Super Nintendo. So I am proficient throughout my entire life and picking up a remote control and playing a video game, whether it's PlayStation, next, Xbox, etc. And if they can't figure it out, right at the beginning, it'll take me a little bit, and I'll figure it out. So if my kids have VR headset, at five years old, they are going to strap that thing on when they walk into the lobby of a business. And you know, they may not ever talk to like a real human being face to face and get hired on and maybe even work for a company and never actually be physically in the building of their headquarters.

Amanda Powell: 21:21

Very true. And in a way, it's nice, because there are so many barriers when you are meeting people in person, right? So like accessibility of like, Hey, you are meeting my brain. We're brains communicating. I need your brain. I need your brain personalities don't have to come into the mix. Because sometimes those can get in the way. Yeah, but I very much will miss people if we get rid of them.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 21:46

I just have so many questions. I'd be here for like two hours if I could. Alright, so as a member of the Tennessee entertainment Commission's interactive digital media advisory council, what are some of the key trends and opportunities you see for the future of digital media and interactive entertainment in Tennessee,

Amanda Powell: 22:05

so the entire entertainment industry in Tennessee, it's exploding, it keeps building and building and building and a lot of people think music when they think Tennessee, but when I was part of the commission, and it was recently that my my tenure expired, you know, like they didn't get new people in. And it was it was very ironic, because most of the time I was in it was during COVID. So the need for technology and digital media. It was like ripe for that. But in my time doing that I met so many businesses, I heard of so many businesses coming to town specifically in movies, entertainment, in the sense of people making movies and needing animators, we met the people that made VeggieTales I think they like headquartered in Tennessee somewhere making new content. And what I kept hearing and what I kept, like what it kept coming back to is the need for workforce, we need local talent, and Tennessee entertainment commission is so much wanting the Tennessee to be supplying the Tennessee talent. You know, I know Tennessee Tech has taken like a big step in letting virtual reality be on campus. But a lot of these students are only learning about VR in our office, like how to make it. And so the opportunity is more to me in education of getting more people inspired to make to create, to invent in these spaces. And then the opportunity is for the schools to provide those resources for learning.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 23:29

I think people don't quite understand like how impactful VR can be in the entertainment space. And I'll put it into a simple perspective. If you can't get a ticket to a Taylor Swift concert, or you have to go to Sweden to see Beyonce because it's four times as expensive in the United States. If you had the ability to actually immerse yourself into the concert or the hockey game or the football game, those stadiums yes, they can still be applicable to like the people who can't quite wrap their heads around VR, but everyone else coming up. Like they're gonna be like, yeah, I gotta take it for like 20 bucks. I'm gonna throw on my VR headset, and I'm gonna see, you know, Taylor Swift Live sing teardrops on my guitar. That's huge business because ticket sales could quadruple I mean, honestly, they could multiply by an infinite amount because while not infinite, but you know, a considerable amount. How many years the like, are we five years away from this being a mainstream application in public schools in workforces? Are we 10 years away from having that haptic feedback. Where how far away are we?

Amanda Powell: 24:42

I think there are so many uses of it right now in the classroom that is completely accessible, like 360 videos, period, done YouTube 360. You can go on a safari, you can dive with sharks, you can sit in the Globe Theater while you read about Shakespeare. I always use that one in mind. dissertation, there are so many applications that are already accessible. And there's really like no barriers in ways like the headset, you know, having that technology. I think that's going to be the only barrier, we get an education. And I think the world will be ready for haptic feedback it in five years based on we've been hearing about these gloves for five years, 10 years. So I could see five years, we've got the gloves, but I do think it'll be a long time before the classrooms can afford to have all this technology. But yeah, I think it's right around the corner. And it's more about adoption, or teachers adopting this tech, I do know of several schools that have received headsets, some from us from programs we do in contests we do with some of our other initiatives. I haven't seen a lot of application. And we did I do want to say it was like five years ago, but kind of still I got the vibe. We did like a teacher education training for how to use like 360 videos, how to use these apps, how to use augmented reality to I remember at the end, they just like asked, okay, so how would we use this in our classroom? And I'm like, we just gave a whole presentation. I don't know what you mean. Like, I do think there is pushback. I do think a lot of teachers are very excited about it. But they have so much piled on them already.

Kosta Yepifantsev: 26:13

And you guys have it from the standpoint of education and business applications. You know, we talk about virtual reality in the health care in the long term care space all the time. And people look at me like I've got, you know, three eyes and forearms when I'm talking about it. They're just like, whoa, do what now, like you want to do what? And I think a lot of it is based off of fear. Yeah. And I'll leave you on this note, before we wrap up. You know, some of the main issues in long term care is social isolation for people that are in a warehouse in a nursing home and rarely get to see their family and live with strangers. They don't have a sense of community as much as those facility based care settings want to try to create a sense of community just doesn't happen. So you can use a virtual reality headset to actually say like, okay, you know, just like you FaceTime your kids or FaceTime your grandkids, you can go to the metaverse and actually experience you know, a much more meaningful relationship with them. The problem is people don't want to except that they don't want to accept that the human interaction that they get by taking their time and driving down the road to the nursing facility and walking in and saying, Hey, Mom, they don't want to accept that that could be replaced by the metaverse. They don't want to accept that. Honestly, the communications that caregivers have with a individual that they care for could very well happen virtually they don't have to happen face to face. They don't want to accept that the training that most people receive can happen virtually as opposed to having hands on training. And I think it goes back to the point that I was making earlier. This is all going to change with the newer generation who are already somewhat socially isolated from growing up as little kids because they have iPads and you know all that stuff. They I think in my opinion, I have you know, my my youngest son Julian like he's addicted to electronics and he loves Roblox and he'd much rather sit at home and play Roblox then walk around even New York City.

Amanda Powell: 28:13

Yeah. Yeah. It's a different generation. Yeah, it really is. And those interactions that I mean, yeah, my family lives in Knoxville, I'd love to be able to like pop on your headset. A few. Let's go chat. Why not?

Kosta Yepifantsev: 28:26

Right. I agree. So we always like to end the show on a high note. Who is someone that makes you better when you're together?

Amanda Powell: 28:35

I feel like I have to say my husband. I feel like it'd be weird if I didn't know Joe Powell. You might know him because he's from Cookeville and knows everybody, but we actually work together to we met at work. So in a way VR brought us together. I like to say the otter brought us together the otter mascot, but he's the exact opposite of me in a very good way. So he keeps me grounded. I'm better for it.

Morgan Franklin: 28:58

Thank you for joining us on this episode of Better Together with Kosta Yepifantsev. If you've enjoyed listening and you want to hear more, make sure you subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you find your podcasts. Leave us a review or better yet, share this episode with a friend. Better Together with Kosta Yepifantsev is a Kosta Yepifantsev Production. Today's episode was written and produced by Morgan Franklin post production mixing and editing by Mike Franklin. Want to know more about Kosta visit us at kostayepifantsev.com We're better together.