The DiVE

Computer Systems Engineer

One of my roles within Duke’s Pratt School of Engineering was to manage the hardware needs of the DiVE, the Duke immersive Virtual Environment, one of 6 CAVE systems in the world at the time.

I saw the DiVE through two generations of computing hardware and worked with their lead programmer to ensure that the hardware met their needs. The final generation featured a computer cluster as recommended by me and housed in a mini rack with KVM. Because the cases didn’t have a convenient mounting point for the link card and cable, I designed and 3D printed a custom mount and ground to mount it to the back of the chassis.

Through working with the DiVE’s lead developer, I learned a lot about VR programming and how the rest of the system worked and became an official tour guide for visitors. For experimental purpose, to compare tracking systems, I designed and made a custom magnetic mount for Vive lighthouses that held the lighthouse without needing to puncture the screens. The magnets were pulled from old hard drives, and I designed a tray system into the mount so they could be positioned accurately for minimum weight and maximum strength.

Star Party VR was developed by me for a Unity course that I audited at Duke. Later adapted to run in the DiVE.