What It Must Be Like

I'm a regular volunteer for virtual reality experiments in my college's Virtual Environment Navigation Laboratory (VENLab for short), so I get to have a helmet strapped to my head and have my world altered to that of a virtual world so that people can conduct scientific studies on things like the relationship between the brain and how people move and respond to different stimuli in their environment. (Don't worry, the hockey part comes after the jump.)

So I went for another experiment this past week, and for the first time, I actually got to strap on the same motion trackers that they put on players when they capture their movements for video games. (Sadly, they only wanted me to walk instead of pretend to be Pavel Datsyuk.) The little silver balls that you see in preview videos of the EA NHL games are just adhesives that track the movements of whatever part it's attached to. Except for the legs: there are four sensors put on plates, instead of attached directly to the body that are wrapped around the calves and thighs with bandages. I just wore street clothes; they didn't have me put on those suits or spandex or whatever that material is they wear that has all the trackers stuck directly to that suit.

It was cool to walk with all of that on. It was a bit uncomfortable at first because the experimenters got personal when they had to wrap the bandages around my thighs, so when they finished stapping the plates with the silver ball trackers on me, my clothes were tied to me, so it took a little bit of getting used to. But EA, if you're looking for a guy off the street who has experience being tracked for motion, feel free to contact me and put me in the free agent pool; I think I'd be a perfect fit for teams like the Edmonton Oilers and Ottawa Senators.