Introductory Pathway to Virtual Reality by Developing Immersive Games of Skill

As the Virtual Reality (VR) market grows with more innovations in the field, the demand for Virtual Reality developers has increased. With the market potentially hitting half-a-trillion market share by 2030, it is a great time to become proficient in VR development. This paper proposes a introductory pathway, Carnival VR, to learn the foundational skills required to become a proficient VR developer. VR user studies and development techniques were reviewed for potential use of developing a lesson plan that incorporates setting up the tooling, technical knowledge, and collaborative process for VR development. Carnival VR lays out the core learning objectives and discusses the introductory pathway success in facilitating a culture of collaboration and creativity in a group of computer science researchers. Furthermore, this paper presents the results of Carnival VR through pre-and-post interviews with researchers in the Software Systems Lab at the University of Nevada, Reno.