VR / ShiftSC Reality Shift Hackathon

ShadeLA

Role: VR development and design, repo administration, and UI/UX
Team: Anjali, Alex, Julius, and me
Time: 14 hours
Tools: Unity, Meta Quest, AI-assisted development
Result: 1st of 80

Neighborhoods such as Pico Union have a severe lack of shade, and ground temperatures can reach 100°F. For the ShiftSC Reality Shift Hackathon for Social Good, my team wanted people to feel that problem instead of reading about it.

The experience

In this VR game, you complete quests around an LA city block without overheating or running out of water. It's deliberately hard. The sun is ruthless, which makes the case for more trees and shade.

What I did

I led XR development, integration, and UI/UX, and looked after the project's repo through all 14 hours.

Result

We won first place out of 80 participants at the hackathon, which was sponsored by Google, Snap, and Sony.

LinkedIn post

Media

Up close

ShadeLA running in the Unity editor, showing the Overheat meter — The Overheat and Water Level meters in a test build.

Ethan works at a laptop while two others watch the build — Working on a build during the hackathon.

The team holds Meta Quest headset boxes after winning — Our team won Meta Quest headsets.

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