Rockets and Psychiatrists and Hopping Bears, Oh My!!

A few weeks I blogged on my first scavenger hunt, but have since had the chance to visit several other places and experience several new things. One place that I visited, and thoroughly enjoyed visiting, was "The Theorist Project". I am not sure that I completely understood its purpose, but did nonetheless enjoy being there. From what I could gather it was basically a "world of psychology". The first thing that I did, after some simple exploration, was visit Dr. Sigmund Freud in his virtual office. I even laid down on his couch so he could psychoanalyze me. He did not really talk to me about "issues" or "problems", but rather took it upon himself to explain to me exactly what "Oedipus Complex" is. I thought this was bazar but something about Freud's ethos in general almost made it seem alright. After all, Freud, at least in my opinion, was rather eccentric, so why should his avatar be any different? I did experience, if I understand the definition of the phrase correctly, and "uncanny valley" moment while in his office. Never in a million years would I be laying on Dr. Freud's, or probably any other Psychologist's or Psychiatrist's to be perfectly honest, but I did still feel like I was there in a way because I was virtually laying on a couch, and his very ethos stood out. He went right into a spiel on the Oedipus Complex and seemed to be very smart, as I would assume Freud to be.

While there, I also went through the Iceburg. Throughout, there were several surveys and experiments set up that were optional. As I went through the Iceburg, I came across what looked like were twenty stuffed teddy bears. I continued walking, trying to pass through them. Once I got close, they immediately started jumping obnoxiously up and down and even more obnoxiously saying random phrases like "feed me" or "stop that". It was a continuous attack of phrases on me that filled up my screen with text from the chatting.

The next place that I visited was the International Spaceflight Museum. The setup and layout of the place was pretty cool. I enjoyed flying around and looking at the rockets, as well as hovering over a globe so that it looked like I was "on top of the world". I also thought that the fact that I could watch NASA television by streaming it through Second Life onto a virtual projector screen was pretty cool. This really demonstrates how powerful of an educational tool Second Life can be. We can watch a video or show on a subject, then go look at the rockets up close. I can see how this would be very effective in teaching students about similar subjects.