So all the planning and talking finally came to fruition this morning!
The Patience Project made its first live stream between a wonderful young lady and her chemistry class. We were fortunate to have a very willing school and willing teacher to help the process and it was, in general, a very successful first go. I find it encouraging that despite all the crap going on, the base human desire to help one another still lives on. Thanks to all those involved in numero uno.
Between us we viewed the video from both laptops and VR headsets. The laptop viewing, which is a horizontally scrollable 2D video window, worked well. The VR headset was a little grainy and suffered from lag and synchronisation issues – definitely some fine tuning to do there, but the concept bore out.
A lot has happened since my last update, here are some of the highlights:
Contact has been made with all five of the first participants and they were all willing to take part – that was easy :)
Installation of the cameras and networking is underway at two of the five requested environments
A funding grant application has been made to a large foundation in New Zealand, they will be making their decision in mid – late April so fingers crossed. This application is to enable the delivery of up to a rolling 30 participants for the end of 2018
Computer server infrastructure is up and running in NZ to transcode (read convert) the live streams into suitable formats for different types of display
Documentation has been finished and is being used – thank Andrea for that
Auckland University Community Research and Evaluation team have made an ethics application to cover their evaluation of the efficacy of the Patience Project, outcome is due shortly
However, we have hit a funding snag at present which I am seeking an immediate solution for. The 360-degree cameras are by far the most expensive part of delivering the proof of concept and we are short the NZD$19,000 required to purchase the remaining three cameras to complete the proof-of-concept. I am discussing possibilities with the team as to how this can be solved, so more on that to come. In the meantime if you know of an organisation or individual that might be prepared to sponsor all or part of this shortfall then please let me know. I refuse to let money be the reason to stop making a difference for these excluded teenagers.
Thanks for listening.
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