- Now, if you're anything like me, you're always fascinated by the brand new digital technologies that are being developed really every day.

Right here at Fitts Woolard Hall on the centennial campus of North Carolina State University, there's this place where they're developing all new virtual reality tools to enhance teaching and learning and even things like medical care.

My name is Dr. Nehemiah Mabry.

I'm a proud engineering graduate at NC State and I'm about to go have some fun in the virtual reality cave.

Let's go.

[upbeat music plays] Okay.

Beam me up or launch me out, Karen.

This is Scale World.

It's a 3-D experience that has been developed by Dr. Karen Chen in Industrial Systems Engineering.

It is funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation, and it teaches concepts of size and scale.

How big is a billion?

How small is an atom?

Oh wow!

- We intend to go to 10 to the positive 15 and 10 to the negative 15.

- Get out of here.

Yeah.

This gets a little nerve wracking because of the ant is standing in my living room and this isn't one that I can step on.

In fact, this is one that maybe can step on me.

This is awesome.

- Those commercials, you see the headsets, but we can also create 3-D experiences using 3-D projectors.

So we will be experiencing 3-D visuals where users don't need to wear those headsets.

We'll be, we'll still wear something over our faces but light 3-D glasses and interact, we'll still see our own body and move around and superimpose our body, move our arms around and visualize various, I call them, scientific entities in this program Scale World.

- And the thing that's so cool about this is that I feel like I'm in this environment but yet I still see you all, like outside of this environment.

It's really, it's really surreal.

- Through our lens or our eyes, the visuals are moving around.

However, it's because that Nehemiah's wearing the tracked 3-D glasses he doesn't see the earth shifting around but we are not getting the perspective that he is getting.

- So by pointing a handheld device, I can go from the size of an ant to the size of a whale.

So this, this whale is literally right in front of me and it feels like if I wanted to, I could pet the back of this realistic looking whale.

Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh!

Okay.

Alright, I am bigger than a whale now.

Did you just make me a giant compared to this whale?

Wow!

Wow!

Look at this.

And obviously the whale was much bigger than me, but now I'm scaled up and the whale is small.

So- - [Dr. Chen] I think that is exactly what we want, those questions we want to ask the students that experience this environment to see if they'd be able to answer that question after they've - - The idea is to use Scale World for education.

The team is currently working with STEM students at a middle school in Wake County.

- We create different interactive 3-D scenarios in a virtual environment.

And depending on the specific research question, say more recently, we have a collaborative project with researchers and College of Design and College of Education trying to use immersive virtual environments along with 3-D graphics and visuals to help K through 12 students in better understanding sizes and scale and improve their numeracy.

We can go to 10 to the negative eight.

- [Dr. Mabry] Oh, I kind of wanna see that.

- So there's a wide range.

Oh, you'll certainly see the powerhouse of the cell.

We talk about that all the time in biology.

- [Dr. Mabry] Yes, we do.

Yes, we do.

- So that is echoing our K through 12 content and we include that in Scale World.

- Oh, mask up.

Mask up.

Suddenly I'm standing eye to eye with the coronavirus.

Wow.

So you're the one that wrecked havoc on our world.

Oh, wow!

It's a bridge and has a - - [Dr. Chen] Foot bridge.

- Oh, okay.

So as a civil engineer, you know, I like this one here because I designed bridges and I've been in New York several times and seen this Brooklyn Bridge going from here to here.

And so often when we design this on paper, even designing this on paper, as an engineer, you don't get the sense of how massive this structure is that you're basically manipulating.

And just like that, I'm in outer space reaching out to touch planets.

You know, you have movies like, "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids."

- [Dr. Chen] Yes.

- And then you have the other movies where you're big or almost like Godzilla.

I'm like Godzilla.

- [Dr. Chen] Yes.

- It's Godzilla in Space.

That's exactly what I am.

Wow.

Okay.

So it gets bigger?

- It gets bigger.

I am collaborating with faculty members from College of Design, college of Education, and well, I've also have collaborators in the Department of Psychology.

So a really cross disciplines design, who would think engineers in design?

- We're already seeing how virtual reality tools can help with everything from car design to customer service.

Scale World, and other immersive learning technologies, will lead to many new developments in healthcare and in other industries.

- I am interested in understanding how humans move, how they behave, how they carry out different tasks.

So I am interested in applying virtual reality technology to create scenarios, virtual scenarios, and that allow me to study human performances, movements, and behaviors.

- Imagine a virtual instructor who can deliver exercise postures to people with chronic shoulder pain.

Nevermind that, it's just plain fun.

- So he sees things right over there.

- Wow.

It's like right here.

It's like I can, I can hug the world.

Ah, this is what the world needs.

Wow.

Man!

And we're just all on this blue marble in space that we call home.

[pensive music plays]