said his game, Food Fiesta, is similar to that of table tennis, but swaps balls for different foods. Using the Oculus Rift, the 17-year-old Oakland Mills student said he felt transported to “a whole other world” when viewing his creation.

“You forget being in the space where you actually are,” he said. “It’s a unique experience that you have to try out for yourself to even know what it’s like. It’s an advancement for us as 3-D artists to be able to interact with our work.”

Architectural design instructor Terry Walker said the Oculus technology is used in his classroom to put students inside the buildings they’ve created. Rather than estimating what it might be like inside a virtually constructed home, students can put on the headset and stand inside any room to get a sense of a ceiling’s height or the room’s overall size.

Walker said one of his students recently used the Oculus Rift to experience her creation, only to learn its scale proportions weren’t modeled correctly.

“She’s walking around in her project and she couldn’t reach the handles to her cabinets because she modeled it way too tall,” Walker said. “She went back and modified it. ... The experience is that we can actually view the architecture and get a sense of the space.”

Caroline Walker, the school system’s director of school improvement and curricular programs, said bringing the Oculus Rift technology to ARL is about giving the students the opportunity to use real equipment that is found in real jobs.

“We’re trying to do things that are close to what real life looks like,” Walker said. “It’s always nice to give kids access to things and having our community partners help us reach that access for students is a gift.” anmichaels@baltsun.com