People with disabilities will soon be able to swim with dolphins in the heart of land-locked Northampton thanks to a project involving the town’s university.
It has been a long-held dream of learning disabilities nurse, Rebecca Gill, to combine therapeutic hydrotherapy with virtual reality, to allow patients to experience swimming with dolphins while immersed in water.
Rebecca, who is the founder of Northampton social enterprise VR Therapies, turned to the University of Northampton to help her realise her dream, and she’s been blown away with the results.
Two Games Art lecturers and a student worked with Rebecca to produce an underwater virtual reality world that harnesses mobile phone technology and is played via a waterproof VR headset.
Watch the footage below
Patients will be able to explore the virtual ocean scene while in a hydrotherapy pool, when VR Therapies opens the doors to its building in Northampton, in 2020.
“The experience you get when you put the headset on is amazing, and everything I …