Teaching Virtual Reality with HTC Vive and Leap Motion

Creating high quality virtual reality (VR) experience takes timeand requires extensive practice. Although, multiple virtual andaugmented reality courses existed for years all over the world, highcosts of the equipment were always in the way of building up theup to date knowledge. Rapid development of the technology causedthe new VR boom and exposed a serious lack of the experiencedVR/AR developers.In this paper, we present our introductory VR courses for masterstudents. The aim of the courses is to provide introduction tothe basics of VR and AR and supporting technology. We move theteaching focus from the specifics of a particular VR system to theskill build-up and development of the VR user experience. For thatwe provide the access to the up to date consumer hardware, such asHTC Vive and Leap Motion.We discuss the structure of the coursesand methodology, and provide the teaching materials. Moreover,we discuss in details our updated practical course that unites thedevelopment of a low-cost desktop and a high-quality immersiveVR applications using only off-the-shelf consumer equipment. Furthermore,we discuss the overall course evaluation by the studentsand further opportunities for their professional growth, as well asconsecutive changes that will be made next.