VHS now has an Occulus Rift DK2

A friend of mine that has accompanied me a few times to the hackspace is moving out of town for a year and needed to clean out his house a bit before subletting it.

He is very impressed with VHS, and intended to sign up, but his being away for awhile is going to delay that plan. Out of interest for promoting our community, he has made some donations that were dropped off yesterday (thanks, members, who dealt with the drop off).

One of the notable donations is an Occulus Rift DK2. He noted that we have a surprising lack of VR equipment, and wanted to make sure people could make use of it. We need to figure out how to store/provide this to members, but please note that the Rift should be considered like a tool at VHS. It is not to be hacked, nor leave the space.

I’m looking for someone to champion this tool. The responsibilities would be:

  1. Create a tool page
  2. Define how the Occulus is stored in the space
  3. Define how the Occulus is accessed in the space
  4. (Bonus) set up a demo on the high-power computer at the space so that members/visitors can get excited about it and dream up cool things to do with it.

Anyone interested?

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Hi Mike,
A big Thank you to your friend!
Sorry haven’t been to VHS in number of days/weeks, but I will try!

(1) For (4) “Set up a demo”, someone partnering with me is greatly appreciated.

(2) Also does anyone have a Microsoft Mixed Reality (MR) Hololens?

(3) Do we have any Unity or other Physics game engine license? Seems the free (restricted) version of Unity doesn’t have Occulus support?

Best,
RK

I’ve checked the computer in the space with the Oculus compatibility app.

Apparently the Graphics card, operating system, and Processor are all below minimum spec.

Operating system: just needs upgrading from Windows 8 to 8.1 which looks to be a free upgrade.
Graphics card: The recommended is about $300 on Amazon, the minimum viable is about $150
Processor: The recommended is about $250 on Amazon, the minimum viable is about $150

I’ll look at how much it would be to get an Oculus ready machine to see if its worth upgrading the current or buying new.

Anyone out there who is good with kitting out PCs that could advise cheaper places to pick up the parts or would FreeGeek be any use for this kind of stuff?

I believe “Free Geek” and “The Hackery” donate Hardware to community organizations such as VHS.
Has anyone asked them for hardware donations previously?
Thanks,
RK

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