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time. The response of the audience to the wheelchair simulator was very positive,
even resulting in a TV interview.
6
In their blogs, the students afterwards refl ected positively on the challenges of
this project that it forced them to deviate from their usual course of more comedic
and controversial works and that it was a great confi dence boost to see their works
being shown in public.
7
Most of the time, this project was approached in a very
playful and fun way, but the students were also aware of the serious applications and
the market potential of this project.
With respect to the play rhetoric, this project can be categorised as 'play as imag-
ination', clearly demonstrating the postpersonal development stage of the students.
The virtual shopping centre within the simulator was deliberately designed to dem-
onstrate everyday frustrations of wheelchair users like stairs, narrow doorways,
long meandering ways to places, etc. Therefore, the wheelchair simulator assists the
user to expand the sense of identity, putting them into a situation that is different
from their normal life, forcing them to see the world from another perspective - lit-
erally and metaphorically. The images in Fig.
3.6
show the simulator in use at the
Digital Nationz event.
Fig. 3.6
Virtual Reality Wheelchair Simulator at Digital Nationz
