Lab Tour

Summary

Back when Lab Tour was created, Simulation Team was still called the VR Team, and Covid-19 was at its peak. The project was conceptualized to give virtual lab tours to our partners so they wouldn’t have to risk exposure by visiting in-person. The idea was that we would send our partners a virtual reality headset for them to explore the lab in. But, shortly after the project began development, Covid passed. So we repurposed the Lab Tour project as a demo for in-person lab tours. Because we had built a digital replica of our lab, we were able to demonstrate a simulated cycle count in the digital and real-world at the same time. With the addition of educational visualizations, Lab Tour became an excellent resource for opening the minds of visitors to the workings of RFID.

The Upgrade

After some time, Lab Tour became a very appreciated piece of software around the lab. We realized as an educational tool, we could do more with it. So we reinvented the idea entirely, and started building from scratch. The new project would be called RF Playground, a multiplayer virtual reality and desktop radio frequency simulation. This is what we show on lab tours today.