Insight
Making VR a reality in the classroom
18 Jun 2024
Guy Schmidt
Head of Performance and Social Value
At Pick Everard, we recognise that by participating in activities, events, or projects that extend beyond direct economic impact adds social value to our communities.
We were proud to be invited to take part in Surrey County Council's latest educational initiative, which welcomed over 80 students from seven schools across the region. The Digital Careers Event was held at the Brooklands Museum in collaboration with Surrey Cyber Security Cluster, the Brooklands Innovation Team as well as industry professionals.
Throughout the day, our digital design team lead, Chong Wong and Senior Digital Design Coordinator, Andrey Kim, hosted an immersive workshop on the way VR headsets are utilised to develop and advance our designs as well as engage clients and partners in what we are delivering.
The workshop aimed to inspire and educate students about the application of VR in architecture and throughout the course of the event, Chong and Andrey delivered 4 workshops, engaging 20 students per workshop over an 8-hour period.
To quantify the social value of our involvement, we applied the National TOMs measure NT8 for School/College engagements and the proxy for this is £16.93 per hour.
With Chong and Andrey dedicating a total of 14 hours to the event (including preparation time), the social value generated amounted to a significant contribution.
The event has a huge success, there was great engagement from the students throughout the workshops and very positive feedback from Surrey County Council (SCC) and Brooklands Museum.
Francesca Castelo, Innovation and Cluster office at SCC said: "I just wanted to say a big thank you to you and your colleagues, Chong and Andrey from the Pick Everard Architecture team, for supporting Brooklands Museum and the Surrey Cyber Security Cluster with the Digital Careers Event!
It was clear how the students were excited with the technology and tools that Chong and Andrey were showing (especially the VR headsets!). It’s good to hear the students discussing applications of those tools as well in other sectors, like healthcare and games."
Tom Corry, Brooklands Museum fed back with: “The workshop your team put together was nothing short of mesmerising, they had the students out of the palm of their hands. Thank you for all of the work you and your team have put in behind the scenes to make this happen.”