Here is a list of our pre-installed VR experiences for exploring the world.
There are different kinds of headsets available that offer different capabilities and affordances. It’s important to note that not all experiences will be compatible with all headsets. Currently, the library has a HTC VIVE Focus 3 Headset and a Meta Quest 3 Headset. We also have a Merge Headset that can be used to view 360 videos (e.g. from YouTube).
The links to the educational 360 VR videos below were taken from the Virtual Reality for Education website, a resource for K-12 and higher education educators to be informed about VR/AR. The website was created by Games Research Lab at Teachers College, Columbia University.
Enjoy the remarkable marriage of art and technology in Dreams of Dali, a virtual reality experience from The Dali Museum (St. Petersburg, FL), as you explore Dali's painting “Archaeological Reminiscence of Millet's ‘Angelus’.” Immerse yourself in the world of the Surrealist master like never before in this encounter, venturing into the towers, peering from them to distant lands and discovering surprises around every corner. We imagine Dali himself, known in his lifetime as what we now call an "earlier adopter" of new technology, would applaud this inspiring homage to his 1935 painting.
Great Paintings from Great Museums of the World in Virtual Reality. More than 1000 paintings, including famous paintings from Sandro Botticelli, Hieronymus Bosch, Caravaggio, Georges de la Tour, Jan van Eyck, Johannes Vermeer, Leonardo da Vinci etc. The paintings can be accessed individually or through art galleries related to an art movement or a painter.
Let's Create! Pottery VR is a creative way to free your mind and relax. It is a realistic simulator of an actual pottery workshop that gives you real satisfaction. Immerse your hands in clay and develop your skills by shaping, decorating, and painting various dishes.
Mona Lisa: Beyond the Glass is the first VR experience presented to the public by the Louvre Museum and is conceived as part of the Museum’s seminal Leonardo da Vinci exhibition which commemorates the 500th anniversary of the artist’s death in France. Mona Lisa: Beyond the Glass reveals the latest scientific research on da Vinci’s artistic innovation and his painting techniques and processes through exceptional visualization in virtual reality, bringing them to life.
Painting VR is a +10.000 square feet virtual painter’s studio with an unlimited supply of paint, inspiring tools, and canvases of all sizes. Once finished, you can share your work with the Painting VR community, or even the world!
Shapes XR (Meta Quest 3 only)
In ShapesXR anybody can start creating in 3D without prior experience within minutes. You can design and prototype your immersive app, invite others to co-create in real-time, or present your ideas using ShapesXR storyboard feature. You can also share your creation with anybody without a VR headset via Web, the Unity plugin or just a picture for your 2D deck.
Tilt Brush lets you paint in 3D space with virtual reality. Unleash your creativity with three-dimensional brush strokes, stars, light, and even fire. Your room is your canvas. Your palette is your imagination. The possibilities are endless.
Smithsonian American Art Museum "Beyond The Walls"
This virtual museum includes three unique pieces for users to engage with, leading to a broader, interactive experience of the original art pieces. Users are able to move freely around the museum’s east wing from inside their headsets, and view a dozen paintings, four works of sculpture, and one video art installation in high fidelity. Upon approaching Adams Memorial, users are transported out of the museum and into a 3D volumetric recreation in Rock Creek Park Cemetery, can experience a 360-degree, 6K video of an actual aurora borealis, and are greeted by a volumetric hologram of the artist Alex Prager explaining the inspiration for the 2013 film, Face in the Crowd.
It’s time to discover your inner artist! With Vermillion, you get a fully equipped oil painting studio in your home, without any of the mess. Ready for the unrivaled sense of accomplishment from creating your first painting? Vermillion features realistic wet-on-wet color mixing, undo, layers, and a wide range of simulated brushes. Developed with the feedback of both traditional and digital artists, you're sure to get the fun of oil painting without any of the frustration.
Explore a virtual museum in room-scale VR: see famous sculptures in full, 1:1 scale and see famous paintings without the limitations of glass and security guards.
Dissection Simulator: Frog Edition
Join Wendy Martin, a national award-winning science teacher, to make Ribbit-ing Discoveries in this virtual reality Frog Dissection. Learn the fundamentals of the female frog anatomy in a fully immersive virtual reality experience.
Journey to the Centre of the Cell
The Journey to the Centre of the cell takes users on a journey to the microscopic world. Explore the surface and interior of a cancer cell, exploring and learning about cellular anatomy and processes.
Visualize atomic orbitals, navigate across energy levels, gain an intuitive understanding of the composition of atoms and their electron configurations by assembling all elements of the periodic table. An educational VR experience designed for use by enthusiasts and academics alike.
The Future of Molecular Design - From drug discovery to chemistry class, Nanome is a powerful tool for research and education. Visualize, build, and simulate chemical compounds, proteins, and nucleic acids like never before. Collaborate remotely in real-time.
Gadgeteer is a physics-based VR puzzle game where you build chain reaction machines to solve fun, intricate puzzles. Your machines will use gadgets to launch, bump, twist, and turn—creating chain reactions that may even end up tearing apart the fabric of space-time.
Take a trip into orbit and experience life on board the International Space Station! In this Emmy-nominated simulation, learn how to move and work in zero-gravity using your controllers. Dock a space capsule, take a spacewalk, and let real NASA astronauts guide you on the ISS through informative videos and images.
Short Circuit VR is an electronics lab simulator in Virtual Reality. You can build your own electronic circuits with the components provided, learn basic electronics by completing challenges and just have fun while experimenting and making awesome projects!
Just how big is big? Discover the answer as you tour through this holographic miniature Solar System, then venture beyond to visit some of the largest known stars.. Enjoy curated photos and facts along the way, at your own pace.
Universe Sandbox is a realistic physics-based space simulator that allows you to create, destroy, and interact on an unimaginable scale. It merges real-time gravity, climate, collision, and material interactions to reveal the beauty of our universe and the fragility of our planet.
In September 1943, a BBC reporter boarded a plane on an allied bombing raid over Berlin. The incredible recording he returned with forms the basis of this breathtaking experience by BBC Northern Ireland and Immersive VR Education, putting you inside a Lancaster bomber as it navigates a most dangerous journey.
Anne Frank House VR (on Meta Quest 3 only)
In 1942, during the Second World War, Anne Frank, a thirteen-year-old Jewish girl and her family were forced to go into hiding to escape persecution from the Nazis. For more than two years, the Franks and 4 others would live in the “Secret Annex” of an old office building in Amsterdam, sharing the burden of living in hiding in confined quarters with the constant threat of discovery. Anne Frank House VR offers a unique and emotional insight into these two years. Experience the world-famous Secret Annex in a never before seen way. Travel back to the years of the Second World War and wander through the rooms of the Annex that housed the group of 8 Jewish people as they hid from the Nazis. Immerse yourself in Anne’s thoughts as you traverse each faithfully recreated room, thanks to the power of VR, and find out what happened to the Annex’ brave inhabitants.
Duration: 25 minutes
This virtual reality experience celebrates New Zealand’s first presence in Antarctica as part of the Trans-Antarctic Expedition and International Geophysical Year and shares what life was like on the ice.
BRINK Traveler is a virtual travel experience that takes you to amazing natural locations in full 3D to feel like you're really there. Step into a postcard and visit some of the most breathtaking places on Earth today!
Britannic: Patroness of the Mediterranean
Explore the Britannic, sister ship of the infamous Titanic, and relive her tragic sinking after striking a mine in the First World War.
Ecosphere (on Meta Quest 3 only)
Venture into the wildest places on earth, where indigenous and community-led efforts are creating space for humanity and wildlife to thrive together. This app covers various places on Earth and its social impact. Whether it be Elephants in Kenya, the Sea of Islands, Marine life in Raja Ampat, plus many others.
Google Earth VR lets you explore the world from totally new perspectives in virtual reality. Stroll the streets of Tokyo, soar over the Grand Canyon, or walk around the Eiffel Tower. This virtual reality app lets you see the world’s cities, landmarks, and natural wonders. You can fly over a city, stand at the top of the highest peaks, and even soar into space. Earth VR comes with cinematic tours and hand-picked destinations that send you to the Amazon River, the Manhattan skyline, the Grand Canyon, the Swiss Alps, and more.
Using cutting-edge technology to create a state-of-the-art immersive piece, Greenland Melting allows viewers to experience being in Greenland – standing in the water in front of a glacier, flying at low altitudes over some of the world’s most stunning scenery, and diving beneath the ocean’s surface to see what NASA’s studies are revealing about how deep Greenland’s fjords go – and how quickly warm ocean water is melting them.
Built in the wake of the Norman Conquest, Guildford Castle was one of England’s first castles and has stood for over 900 years.Visit a hyper-realistic digital double of the castle as it stands today, created using state-of-the-art 3D scanning techniques. Step into the distant past and discover the royal palace and medieval town. Travel back in time to 14th century England and see what the former regional palace and town would have looked like in the late medieval period. Experience the sights and sounds of the era, with meticulously researched historical reconstructions, medieval soundscape and dynamic day-night cycle lighting.
London Museum of Water & Steam
This application is a virtual tour of the London Museum of Water & Steam museum. The application allows you to explore the museum and the functioning steam machines. The London Museum of Water & Steam is an independent museum founded in 1975 as the Kew Bridge Steam Museum. Situated on the site of the old Kew Bridge Pumping Station in Brentford, near Kew Bridge on the River Thames in West London, England, the museum is centred on a collection of stationary water pumping steam engines dating from 1820 to 1910. It is the home of the world’s largest collection of working Cornish engines, including the Grand Junction 90 inch, the largest such engine in the world. The site is an anchor point on the European Route of Industrial Heritage.
National Geographic Explore VR (on Meta Quest 3 only)
Set off as a National Geographic explorer to discover two of the most iconic locations on the planet! Head to Antarctica and set off on a thrilling expedition of discovery. Navigate around icebergs in a kayak, climb a massive ice shelf and survive a raging snowstorm as you search for a lost emperor penguin colony. Visit Machu Picchu, Peru and get immersed in amazing digital reconstructions of the ancient Inca citadel. Witness mummy worship, raise a cup of sacred chicha and encounter alpacas as you match Hiram Bingham’s photographs from when he rediscovered the Inca citadel.
Noun Town: VR Language Learning
Noun Town: VR Language Learning is the new way to learn a foreign language! Pick things up, listen, read, and speak your chosen language in a world that regains color as you learn. Test your skills with mini-games & talk to the local villagers. Learn Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Spanish, and more.
13 sports are featured here: archery, billard, baseball, basketball, badminton, bowling, boxing, dart, golf, table tennis, tennis, volleyball, and squash.
First Person Tennis ‐ The Real Tennis Simulator
Now, you can play on a real tennis court and face professional tennis players. You'll have to show all your technical and tactical skills.
The ultimate Table Tennis simulator. Play opponents from around the world or hone your skills by playing a match against our AI.
PowerBeatsVR is a high-intensity VR fitness game where you box, dodge, and squat to the rhythm of energetic music. Choose between official songs with leaderboards and dozens of professional workouts or play with your own music using the generator. See those calories burn and your pulse racing
The Fundamental Attribution Error, as coined by a Stanford Psychology Professor, describes how we blame others when bad things happen to them, but blame the external situations when bad things happen to us. There is a misconception that losing one’s home is due to who you are and the choices you make. Becoming Homeless: A Human Experience seeks to counter this belief.
In this immersive virtual reality experience from Stanford University’s Virtual Human Interaction Lab, spend days in the life of someone who can no longer afford a home. Interact with your environment to attempt to save your home and to protect yourself and your belongings as you walk in another’s shoes and face the adversity of living with diminishing resources.
Researchers from Stanford have run thousands of participants through this experience in an effort to study the effect of VR experiences on empathy. Across our studies, we demonstrate that a VR experience changes helping behavior more than other types of perspective taking exercises, and the effect lasts months afterward. While this 7-minute journey does not come close to the immense burden of living without a home, researchers continue to find that VR experiences can be a powerful tool to help put oneself in the shoes of another.
In 1935, Yonezo Okita left his home in Hiroshima, Japan, and began a new life in Canada. Then war and state-sanctioned racism changed everything—he became the enemy. Three generations later, his grandson, artist Randall Okita, leads us on an interactive virtual pilgrimage through an emotional geography of immigration and family to recover what was lost.
Cubism (on Meta Quest 3 only) - Mixed Reality
Challenge your mind in Cubism, a deceptively simple puzzle game where you assemble increasingly complex shapes out of colorful blocks. Immerse yourself in a zen environment as you reason your way through 90 puzzles which will put your spatial thinking skills to the test.
First Encounters (for Meta Quest 3 only) - Mixed Reality
You are on a strange new planet and pesky space puffians are about to flood into your room. Catch as many as you can before time runs out – match colors for a high score!
First Hand (for Meta Quest 3 only) - Mixed Reality
First Hand is an official Hand Tracking demo built by Meta. Experience the magic of interacting with the virtual world directly with your hands. Use switches, levers, virtual UIs as you solve puzzles to build robotic gloves, and then experience their superpowers.
Gorilla Tag (for Meta Quest 3 only)
Run, climb, and jump in VR using a unique locomotion method that only needs the movement of your hands and arms. No buttons, no sticks, no teleportation. Push off of surfaces to jump and squeeze them with both hands to climb. The movement is easy to learn, and hard to master.
Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes
You’re alone in a room with a bomb. Your friends, the “Experts”, have the manual needed to defuse it. But there’s a catch: the Experts can’t see the bomb, so everyone will need to talk it out – fast! Put your puzzle-solving and communication skills to the test as you and your friends race to defuse bombs while attempting to communicate quickly before time runs out!
The Key (on Meta Quest 3 only)
Meet Anna. Anna doesn’t remember her past, but she has vivid dreams about it. In every one of her dreams, there is a mysterious Key. Will you be able to unlock the mystery behind The Key without sacrificing too much? The Key is a magical realism experience that will take you on a journey through dreams, facing challenges and difficult decisions, leading to a shocking reveal. (20-minute, standing interactive theatrical VR experience)
How would you react to your child's mother ending her own life? Would you make the same choices I made? Would you feel the same regret? How would you support your child through this painful moment of life? Both a visual novel and an adventure game, Lie in My Heart is the exploration of a family tragedy and of the autobiographical possibilities of videogames. The game relies on the concept of « expressive games »: play experiences that give players the opportunity to take someone’s place in order to explore personal psychological and social issues, as well as moral and ethical dilemmas and their consequences.
Meditation VR is a series of high-fidelity meditation experiences. Our aim was to raise the bar of meditative experiences in VR to truly transport you to a beautiful dream location. Birds high up in the sky, waves rolling in on the shore, the wind blowing through palm trees and plants that grow on your private secluded island all contribute both visually and in sound to a surreal experience that practically makes you feel the ocean breeze.
You are guided by a meditative voice uniquely tailored to the island environment to help ease you into this truly immersive experience.
Notes on Blindness (On Meta Quest 3 only)
In 1983, after decades of steady deterioration, John Hull became totally blind. To help him make sense of the upheaval in his life, he began documenting his experiences on audio cassettes. These original diary recordings create the basis of this interactive non-fictional narrative which is a cognitive and emotional experience of blindness.
A Show of Kindness
A Show of Kindness is a three-act VR experience through which the user navigates an unfolding story frozen in time, crafted with meticulous detail by concept artist Peter Chan using a custom build of Tilt Brush. Tilt Brush’s room-scale technology allows users to walk through three scenes and listen to the ambient sounds that each character inspires. In this three part story, you will journey with our protagonist, a young girl searching for a home, through staggering environments and whimsical creations in Chan’s heartwarming immersive storytelling vignette.