Mark Steelman
XR Developer/Enthusiast
About Me:
I was born and raised in Brooklyn, NY, and have always had a strong passion for music, gaming, movies, and fun gadgets. As a college undergraduate I discovered virtual reality technology and found myself driven to use emerging technology to make an impact on the field of education. Without any formal tracks to learn about XR at school, I took an entrepreneurial approach in teaching myself the skills necessary to develop immersive applications and to collaborate with others who share my passion for technology and education. This portfolio website covers my work as an undergraduate college student, check out my Timeline page to learn more about my journey into the XR space.
I'm now a Senior Unity Engineer managing a team of engineers at Transfr, where we help people get jobs with VR. I'm constantly challenging myself to help others while maintaining rapid personal growth.
Projects:
Breakout VR
A VR port of the classic Atari game, Breakout. Instead of moving a paddle from left to right on a 2D screen to stop the ball from going to the bottom of the screen, you have a paddle in your hand in a 3D tunnel and you need to deflect the ball into the bricks and stop the ball from going behind you. This was my first ever VR project made in Unity using the HTC Vive.
History of Jazz VR Museum
A VR museum experience that teaches you about what jazz music is and takes you through the four main eras of jazz and the different artists and songs in those eras. Whenever you walk up to a piece on the wall, music associated with it starts playing. There are also some experimental features that showcase the potential of VR to enhance the musical understanding experience, including a 360 video of a jazz concert and a song arranging station. This application was made with the VRTK Unity plugin and runs on the Vive, Oculus Rift, and Windows Mixed Reality headsets.
Pianoless
A VR instrument application that allows you to play the piano and learn the piano without a real piano. This application uses a Vive headset and a Leap Motion sensor to track your hands (also works with Vive controllers). There is a unique recording technique that records what you play in the form of notes on the horizon that come towards the piano like Guitar Hero. This allows you to record your piano playing and create instructions for you or someone else to easily learn and reproduce the song.
iXperience 360 Golden Thread
A proof of concept 360 video for how VR can be used for marketing the iXperience summer abroad program in Cape Town, South Africa. The video is a collection of footage taken by myself and my students as part of the Golden Thread project for iXperience's 2018 VR course. I showed the students how to take 360 footage and planned out the shots for them to take, as well as editing and publishing the video.
Research:
Effects of Visual Stimuli on Memory Performance in Virtual Environments
A research study exploring the uses of VR in an educational setting where we tried to see if 3D models could make memorization of flashcard information easier. Each subject would try memorizing information about characters through three types of flashcards: just text, text and a picture, and text and a 3D model. Our results did not fully support the hypothesis that 3D models aid in memorization, although they did make the memorization process more enjoyable. This study was conducted with 24 subjects using the Acer Windows Mixed Reality headset.
A research study exploring the benefits of AR in introductory computer science education. Computer science is often considered unapproachable by many students, and this study seeks to demonstrate that the medium of AR can be used to make computer science more approachable. To do this I created two equivalent versions - PC and AR - of a tutorial on the concept of inheritance. I conducted the study with 18 subjects using the Magic Leap One headset, and the results have shown overwhelming preference for and statistically significant performance improvements with the AR version of the tutorial.
Augmented Reality in Computer Science Education: Exploring the Benefits of 6DOF Augmented Reality for Teaching Inheritance in Object Oriented Programming
Articles:
Terminology:
Virtual Reality (VR): Encompasses all immersive experiences and implies virtual objects in a virtual environment. These can be created using real-world content like 360 video, purely computer generated (CG) content, or a hybrid of both.
Augmented Reality (AR): Unlike VR, AR implies virtual objects overlaid in a real-world environment that can interact with the environment in real-time.
Mixed Reality (MR): Similar to AR, MR implies virtual objects anchored to and interacting with a real-world environment in real-time. I would consider MR and AR to be synonyms, but some people make a distinction with object occlusion.
XR: The catch-all term XR refers to all CG content and devices whether in a virtual or real-world environment. The 'X' in XR is just a variable, but some say it stands for extended. XR loosely describes any sort of reality changing technology.
I prefer to use XR when talking generally about the immersive technology industry, however unfortunately there is a lot of disagreement between researchers, developers, and consumers on how/when these terms should be used.