{"id":109097,"date":"2020-05-04T12:05:24","date_gmt":"2020-05-04T16:05:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ucf.edu\/news\/?p=109097"},"modified":"2025-06-17T14:41:41","modified_gmt":"2025-06-17T18:41:41","slug":"leading-virtual-reality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ucf.edu\/news\/leading-virtual-reality\/","title":{"rendered":"Leading Virtual Reality"},"content":{"rendered":"

From an early age, Thomas Pring \u201920<\/strong> loved video games \u2014 but he never thought he\u2019d end up where he did.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was always the kid who would stay in his room playing video games growing up,\u201d he says. \u201cA lot of those games left an impression on me and I thought \u2018What kind of video games could I make?\u2019 But, I always assumed I\u2019d be an engineer.\u201d<\/p>\n

At 12 years old, Pring attended a summer camp for coding and game development. He was immediately hooked. He worked for the camp every summer after that teaching kids programming, programming languages and software to make video games. He would later move to private lessons and online tutoring, where he started to appreciate how much kids like to learn.<\/p>\n

\u201cI realized this is something fun and is both a creative outlet and art form.\u201d – Thomas Pring \u201920<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cI realized this is something fun and is both a creative outlet and art form,\u201d he says. When it was time to go to college, he told his parents he wanted to make video games. \u201cBoth of my parents work in incredibly different fields than anything I\u2019ve ever been interested in. But they were quick to say \u2018Go for it! We\u2019ll help however we can to try to make sure you can do what you want to do.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n

Pring transferred to UCF his sophomore year and eventually settled on a game design major<\/a> and computer science minor<\/a>. Today, Pring is working at two research labs at UCF.<\/p>\n

At Limbitless Solutions<\/a>, Pring works on the Video Game Training Team and is advised by assistant professor of Game Design Peter Smith \u201905MS \u201912PhD<\/strong>. The team develops video games to assist bionic kids as they learn the mechanics of their new prosthetic arm. Unlike purely entertainment games, Pring says these games \u201chelp kids learn to react to the game and flex their hands or make gestures through video games. It\u2019s all about making their reactions natural or second nature.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThomas has been one of our most accomplished game design students and has been a big part of the new training games arriving in both Android and Apple app stores as well as our bluetooth flex controller for the phones,\u201d says Albert Manero \u201912 \u201914MS \u201916PhD<\/strong>, co-founder and chief executive officer of Limbitless Solutions. \u201cWe are really proud of his accomplishments.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThomas has been one of our most accomplished game design students.\u201d – Albert Manero \u201912 \u201914MS \u201916PhD<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The second lab would fulfill Pring\u2019s interest in virtual reality \u2014 and would help push him professionally. He applied to participate in The Harrington Lab, which investigates Virtual Nature, using augmented reality and virtual reality as a technical artifact to better understand perceptual phenomenon as it relates to human-computing-environment interactions that cause emotional, learning and aesthetic outcomes. Pring\u2019s work hinged on discovering how people learn best, using a virtual recreation of the UCF Arboretum as the classroom. The idea is to understand how people can learn about nature and plants in a virtual environment.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you want to learn about plants, you could do a virtual walk and get information from a pop-up window,\u201d he says. \u201cOr you could go out into the environment with a phone and get information on your device. Or you could be sitting in a classroom and watching the tour on a screen.\u201d<\/p>\n

He and his fellow researchers started with a first-person version of the project to test how it worked. The team then moved on to VR to create a more immersive experience.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn March, we developed a controller to work with a treadmill desk so you could literally take a walk through the Arboretum with a projector,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Pring is complimentary of the artwork in the game, which was worked on by others before he joined the team. \u201cI\u2019m not an artist in any way, shape or form but that art is amazing. The plants are as real as you can get. The team went out and took photos of the leaves and what they look like up close \u2014 same for the water, sand, even tree bark \u2014 and they made those in game as real images. It\u2019s really impressive.\u201d<\/p>\n