SCUBA simulator advances the field of virtual reality while exploring the relationship between diving and disability
Tuesday, April 12, 2016 - 07:03
in Mathematics & Economics
"My diving bell becomes less oppressive, and my mind takes flight like a butterfly," Jean-Dominique Bauby wrote in his agonizingly beautiful account of living with severe disabilities, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. Holding these contrasting images of physical submersion and mental liberation in your mind is a useful way to approach Dhruv Jain's virtual reality project, Amphibian. Jain, a master of science candidate in the MIT Media Lab's Living Mobile Group who is partially deaf, created this SCUBA diving simulator to help abled people understand in an artistic way the liberating effects of disabilities, which he likens to the experience of being underwater.