Science Fair Experiment

PBS Digital Studios and the PBS Digital Innovation team were seeking to create a VR educational app for Oculus Quest 2 to be released by the end of 2021. This app would feature a modular content approach including multiple educational experiences inspired by a range of PBS Digital Studios series in one place.

We worked hard as a team to figure out how to commission DS producers and partners on ideas, narrow down interactions, content, talents, modularity, platform and scope. We met with gaming vendors to discuss technologies and scope for building out the solution. We met with Oculus to see if they would help promote our work.

Lesson learned:

The expertise and cost associated with a native Oculus Q2 App dev warrants a large production budget, external vendor support, and a dedicated team who manage the product. Turnover in Facebook to Meta shifted their priorities.

But don’t give up hope! We might revisit or slice up smaller portions into a future WebXR project.