Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed.

What if you could walk on the moon? Feeling weightless, seeing the earth as a marble on the horizon? Well, now you can: in virtual reality! When the science center Phänomenta reached out to me for a virtual reality experience in tribute to the 50th lunar landing anniversary, I wanted to create something even more immersive than just plain VR.
Teamed up with one fellow student we designed a contraption, that reduces the weight of the player to approximate Moon's gravity. The software is then used to simulate the Apollo 11 landing site including the lunar lander and earth in the distance. Using velocity estimation and the calibrated player height we perform a jumping maneuver to move the guests around.
The experience is designed to run on a timer while after a short tutorial sequence the participants can jump around and collect moon rock samples. In the end there is a little scoreboard showing the amount of rock collected, distance traveled and jumps made.

Design Concept

Construction Planning

Scene View

Operator Interface