VR experience for parasite prevention

PARASITES and how to prevent them is the focus of a new virtual reality experience co-developed in Ballarat

Federation University veterinary bioscience researcher Dr Sarah Preston and technical officer Evan Dekker have created ParasitesVR, a program which aims to educate people about how to avoid infection if they are camping in remote northern Australia.

The hand-tracked experience tasks its user with virtually boiling water, catching and cooking food safely, repelling mosquitoes, and treating pets’ parasites.

It was pitched by parasitology PhD students, funded by the Australian Society for Parasitology, and the experience was demonstrated at Mount Helen campus last week.

“We began developing these modules for teaching parasite theory in the Bachelor of Veterinary and Wildlife Science degree, and the beauty of using VR is that you can show things that you wouldn’t be able to in reality,” Dr Preston said.

“This is not something we can do in a classroom. It’s fun and you can build in learning experiences, which is great for teaching and getting students involved.

“If you keep your animals healthy and do the simple hygiene things well, you’re taking steps to stay healthy as well.

“This module is now being used by the University of Sydney and ANU and we extended that experience to include a horse for the students to study.”

Mr Dekker got involved in the project with an information technology background and interest in VR.

“With this latest experience, I was keen to take advantage of the hand tracking capabilities,” he said.

“This uses no controllers at all; it tracks exactly what your hands are doing which is what the latest VR systems are doing.

“I have a passion for taking new and novel things that are a bit gimmicky and really trying to find out how they can be useful in their own unique way.

“VR can basically simulate anything. If there are scenarios that are too expensive or too dangerous to do, it’s really useful in that instance.

ParasitesVR is set to be presented at Auckland Zoo at The Australian Society for Parasitology conference in August.