I began this research project with the broad concept of creating a VR experience that could help autistic individuals prepare for going to the airport. I began my research by reading papers by a recent Tufts PhD Computer Science graduate, Tooba Ahsen, whose work focused on the use of AR for autistic contexts. My advisor served as Tooba’s advisor during their time at Tufts, and it was his suggestion that I begin my research in this manner. I also looked through Tooba’s sources and began collecting relevant articles for my own project, which I began to organize within a google doc with links.

We decided that this project should be created in Unity, so I made sure to get Unity setup and running on my personal computer. The plan is to spend the summer doing mostly reading and going through Unity tutorials in order to get a better idea of what can actually be accomplished with this tool.

My initial ideas these weeks are focused on understanding more about the community that this project will serve and whether or not it makes sense to use VR. I have questions about the immersive nature of VR and whether or not this format might be overwhelming, whether this experience should be more passive through stories or more active through gamification, and what addressing customization will look like for this project.

(I will be putting in 10 hours a week during the summer, which means that my summer posts will include 2 weeks each, in order to sum up to 20 hours. I will also be meeting in person with my advisor, Professor Fahad Dogar, bi-weekly.)