We are very pleased to announce that MVX has been selected as a finalist for the 24th WAITTA INCITE Awards, in the Regions & Industry – Resources category.
The WA Information Technology and Telecommunications Alliance (WAITTA) has been conducting an annual award since 1991. The purpose of WAITTA is to recognise outstanding performance and contributions by members of the ICT community in Western Australia.
Category winners will be announced at the WAITTA INCITE Awards Presentation Dinner, which is being held on Friday, 19 June 2015 at the Perth Convention & Exhibition Centre.
In addition to our main projects, the MVX team also focuses on creating tools and frameworks to help streamline our development workflow. The latest one in our repertoire is the MVX Build Manager.
Our previous workflow consisted of TortoiseSVN to manage versioning, and external documents to keep track of release notes. We developed the MVX Build Manager which is integrated directly into the Unity IDE, allowing us to do the versioning and release notes all in one place.
Within the Build Manager, our developers can specify build profiles so we can create builds with different settings to different platforms simultaneously.
The release notes are automatically created based off categorised commit notes, and can include internal comments only for the development team.
Committing and updating from our SVN trunk is all done through the Build Manager so we never have to leave Unity.
The tool automatically exports release notes as a text file along with each build, so that Project Managers and clients can easily see what has changed since the last version.
A team of 2 developers from Sentient Computing took part in the Unearthed Hackathon in Perth over the weekend of 02/05/14. With only 2 days available, they tackled the challenge to provide a simulation solution to assist mines in managing a network of linked conveyor belts in a port stockyard. The goal was to be able to track and manage the dependencies between conveyors, control the traffic, and coordinate maintenance and downtime issues.
Using our MVX technology along with existing conveyor, and equipment assets, they were able to create an interactive 3D simulation of the actual stockyard. The application is linked to phone and mobile devices so that a person on site can navigate to where a problem is, and remote users who can see exactly what they are referring to. Due to time constraints, they were only partially able to implement the connection to the underlying network and database. However, they were able to demonstrate the ability to select and modify control settings on the conveyors using the simulation tool.
There were rounds of applause during the presentation, as people saw how easy it is to navigate through the virtual mine site and how accurately the equipment and stockyard are depicted. The value of being able explore the true environment, as opposed to relying on 2D schematics, had enormous appeal.
The opportunity to rapidly prototype and deploy a real-world solution made for a challenging and fun weekend. It was good to interact with other teams who work with different technologies and to network with local talent.
After the success of our previous Instructional Design Innovation Workshop, we recently held another Training Workshop to show attendees the benefits of using immersive 3D worlds to train and induct personnel. We had a great turnout of people, from training, safety, HR and management backgrounds. This workshop was again organised and facilitated by Joanne Turbett of UpArrow Consulting, who did a fantastic job in engaging the audience and getting them to think outside of the box.
The day started off with an icebreaker where attendees had to pick a postcard that reminded them of something and explain why, resulting in some humorous and interesting answers. After this, attendees shared their experiences on how inductions and training are currently delivered in their workplaces. We used the MVX Induction Demo as an example throughout the workshop, first demonstrating how key learning outcomes were identified and used as a focus during the instructional design process. The MVX Induction Demo was then played through, and attendees had the opportunity to map the content in the demo back to the original learning outcomes.
After this, Joanne reviewed the different factors which make 3D virtual worlds engaging, and how they promote retention of information. Keeping this in mind, we then gave attendees information on the topic of fire extinguishers, and asked them to identify the key learning outcomes that are associated with the extinguishers and their use. Following this, the attendees got into small groups to storyboard possible ways of visualising and teaching these learning outcomes in an interactive 3D game. There were many creative ideas suggested, ranging from mini-games to match extinguishers to the correct types of fires they could be used on, animated cutscenes and scenarios, and different ways of teaching users to identify the types of fires.
The workshop finished off with lunch and discussions on ideas generated throughout the day, whilst a few tried out our other training demos. There was a lot of positive energy and enthusiasm as to what could be accomplished with immersive 3D training, and people who had never been exposed to this type of medium left with a lot of new ideas.
Last Friday saw one of the many exciting events the MVX team takes part in – a Tech Day.
Tech days for the team mean freedom to pursue an idea or concept that until then, may have had to been put on the back-burner. We can work in teams or alone, and a number of unique projects have emerged due to it.
This time however, was a group effort – the very first MVX internal game jam! The idea behind this topic being a chance to create something from the industry that has such a big impact on our work – games. Every Tech Day has brought something to the table to benefit MVX, and this was no exception – the project the team decided to undertake was based on training a player on the different extinguisher types and what fires they should be used on. The concept was to create an interactive, multiplayer system that functioned similarly to the Man Vs Machine mode of Valve’s TF2.
Early networking prototype – pills and boxes!
Look at those particles!
The team ready to fight fire.
The team worked incredibly hard over 14 hours, and was able to produce a fully functional prototype – which we then got the entire office to play together!
It was a great day, and the team had a lot of fun working together. Far from finished, we’ve all decided to continue working on it in future, and look forward to sending it out and letting you all get to experience co-operative fire fighting!
Sentient Computing and Woodside Energy were recently announced the Platinum Award winners in the Game or Simulation category of the 2013 LearnX Impact Awards. The purpose of the LearnX awards program is to:
Our winning submission was our Heat Stress training module, developed for Woodside Energy. The training module was set in a 3D virtual environment which realistically represented the Pilbara region where Woodside’s Browse operations were located, and was designed to interactively and immersively teach users about heat stress, including: the symptoms to look out for, ways to prevent heat stress, and the appropriate procedures to follow in emergency scenarios.
The training module has since been completed by approximately 700 Browse employees and contractors, over 86% of which rated their experience as good, very good or excellent.
We would like to thank everyone from Sentient, Woodside and Torq who were involved with both the development of the module and the submission entry, for their valuable contributions towards this award.
We went. We Struggled. We Conquered!
Bright and early on Saturday morning, a group of the Sentient team braved the cold and lack of sleep, to drive to the Northam Army Training Camp where we battled through the cross country Warrior Dash obstacle course. After arriving and picking up our race kits which consisted of timing chips, number bibs and viking hats, we quickly got into our race gear and headed to the starting line. The race started with an uphill climb to the first obstacle of mud trenches, needing to crawl through it with barbed wire inches above our heads!!! 11 more obstacles followed, a mixture of jumping flaming coals, climbing vertical walls, swimming through muddy trenches and jumping hay bales. The dash distance was 5kms all up and the team finished a little spread out but everyone did an awesome job and completed every obstacle!
After accepting our medals at the finish line and a quick & cold wash down with a hose, we grabbed Doug’s wallet and headed for the bar and food stalls. They had live music to listen to and giant turkey legs to wolf down. I think we earned it!
A few cuts and bruises became apparent after a proper wash at home, but we all came out unscathed and proud!
Next year we’ll get the whole team doing it, start training people! 
– Leonie
On Friday the 10th May, Sentient Computing received our very own Oculus Rift kit. This was met with much enthusiasm, excitement and more than one exclamation of “WHOA!”
A bit of back story.
In August of 2012, OculusVR launched a crowd funding campaign on Kickstarter to fund the creation of the Oculus Rift, a Virtual Reality headset aiming to be both effective with its immersion, and affordable to the general public. Within a few hours, the Rift blew past its goal of $250,000, to reach an incredible $2.4 million at the close of the campaign 30 days later, nine times their initial target.
Skip forward 8 months, and the developer versions of the Rift begin shipping; a plethora of videos, pictures and demos appeared over the following weeks as eager devs got their hands on their very own Rift – and now Sentient has joined them.
The experience with the Rift is amazing; so amazing in fact, that it’s very difficult to understand what it’s like without experiencing it for yourself. We’ve all seen graphical fidelity improving over the years – greater numbers of polygons higher definition textures – but for all the beauty to be found in the digital landscape, we continue to watch it through a porthole, the video screen providing just a small window into those worlds, and a barrier to fully experiencing them. Enter the Rift, and that barrier is shattered; look straight ahead, and our view isn’t from a porthole, instead we are there – turn around and we don’t see the familiar walls and furnishings of the office, but instead an incredible vista from the world we have entered. Left, right, up, down, it doesn’t matter where you look – now we are truly experiencing the world as it was meant to be.
So where to from here? Well, that’s rather easy actually;
Training. Inductions. Simulation.
The immersive potential for training is huge – instead of simply having a trainee or contractor watch a video, answer a few questions and promptly forget the important bits, you could have them experience exactly what happens and how to handle a situation – cheaply, safely and in a way they will remember. Induct someone through a digital version of the very plant they will be working at, have them navigate their way to a muster point in a simulated emergency, or assist a coworker with a task. There are many other possibilities that a safe, immersive environment can provide.
We’ve already began working on integrating the Rift into a number of our demonstration projects, and look forward to giving our customers a chance to experience the Rift for themselves. Keep an eye out for upcoming events, as the Rift could be a feature presentation!
