THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: In an effort to provide an immersive experience for the users, Kerala Science and Technology Museum and Priyadarshini Planetarium is all set to introduce a tour of space in virtual reality. The VR project will be inaugurated and opened to the public on Wednesday.
The initiative will teleport the users to a virtual world of space where they can explore all the planets and their details while travelling in a spacecraft. The project is developed in collaboration with CDIT.
The virtual reality-enabled space tour allows the users to explore the vastness of space, provides opportunity to witness celestial wonders and encounter different planets along the way. Planetarium director Soju S S said they are expecting more footfall once the school reopens.
“Majority of the visitors at present are families because of the vacation. Currently, we have set up four VR booths and are offering three virtual experiences for the visitors,” Soju said. “We will increase the numbers of the VR booths depending on the demand,” he added.
He added that they are considering to extend the operational hours of the planetarium in the near future. “At present, we are open till 8pm and we get a lot of visitors at the observatory during the evening hours. In February, we received around 34,000 visitors, of which 24,000 were students. In April, the numbers were around 22,000, of which 8,000 were children,” he said.
The authorities have fixed the rate at Rs 30 and Rs 20 for adults and children, respectively, for the VR experience. In addition to the space exploration adventure, the museum also provides an interactive educational game for students.