VRchaeology
A virtual field school where students learn archaeological field methods inside an immersive cave: grids, excavation, mapping, photographing finds and lab analysis. I helped produce it, tested it with players and built the gamified course app around it.
- ROLE
- Associate producer and XR lead (Aug 2024 to Aug 2026); research assistant from fall 2026
- TEAM
- Game Studies and Design stu/dio, University of Illinois. Sponsor: Prof. Laura Shackelford. Co-PI: Prof. Wen-Hao David Huang
- FUNDING
- NSF awards 1736235 and 2021460; Epic MegaGrants
- BUILT WITH
- Unreal Engine, immersive VR on Meta Quest 3 (used offline)
The problem
Archaeological field schools teach by doing, but they usually need a site, a season and the ability to travel and move across rough ground. VRchaeology brings the field into the classroom so that students can learn the methods without leaving it.
The lab describes it as a test case for field sciences more broadly.
The experience
Students work in an immersive virtual cave. They set up grids, locate and excavate artifacts, map features, photograph finds and run lab analyses, so classroom learning connects with field practice. The game is built in Unreal Engine and is currently used offline.
Development continues at the Game Studies and Design stu/dio with new labs and improvements to the experience.
My part
- Production. As associate producer and XR lead at the stu/dio (August 2024 to August 2026) I coordinated three externally funded projects, VRchaeology among them, managing scope, timelines, sponsor communication and quality assurance.
- UX evaluation and playtesting. I led the UX evaluation and playtesting for VRchaeology on Meta Quest 3 and turned player feedback into prioritized design changes.
- Accessibility playtests. As a research assistant I lead IRB-approved accessibility playtests with wheelchair users (14 to date), using surveys, interviews, observation and video.
- The course app. From fall 2026, as a research assistant, I designed and built the gamified platform for the field-season course, with quests, a points planner and a semester map.
A course built around it
GSD 282: VRchaeology, offered in Spring 2027, was co-created by Prof. Laura Shackelford and me. The course app gives the semester a game layer with quests, a points planner and a semester map.
Accessibility research
With NSF support (award 2021460, 2020 to 2022) the project investigated how virtual reality could make archaeology and other field-based sciences more accessible to college students who use wheelchairs, gathering the perspectives of students with mobility or physical disabilities. That research strand ran from 2020 to 2022 and is not an open recruitment; accessibility playtests with wheelchair users continue as part of the current work.
Where it came from
The research is older than the current game. An earlier NSF award (1736235, 2017 to 2020) built a room-scale VR archaeological site, and the studies around it were published in Educational Media International (2019) and presented at E-Learn (2018 and 2019) and the Society for Historical Archaeology (2020), led by Prof. Shackelford and Prof. Huang with their collaborators.
Credits
Sponsor: Prof. Laura Shackelford. Co-PI: Prof. Wen-Hao David Huang. Project manager: Gabriel Wozniak. Associate producer: Sepehr Vaez Afshar. The stu/dio leads are Daniel Cermak (director), Robbie Sieczkowski (producer), Max Yang (programming), Aditya Bhave (art), Rodrigo Hidalgo Amat Y Leon (design), Sarvin Eshaghi (quality assurance) and Olive Wang (accessibility). Programmers, designers, artists, composer and sound designer are listed on the IN/SITU project page.
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