Nescot college creates VR space for students

Nescot college in Ewell is investing £650,000 to transform its hair studio into a virtual reality immersive space for its students.

The state-of-the-art technology will include driving simulators and immersive learning spaces which work with a variety of artificial intelligence tools.

It will allow students to gain specialist skills and experiences, like driving a forklift truck, or navigating a busy A&E ward, without leaving the classroom.

The cutting-edge technology will include an Igloo, an immersive room, and vehicle simulators.

The Igloo is designed to virtually ‘transport’ groups of students around the world for virtual field trips and can also recreate hazardous environments so students can conduct dangerous learning safely.

Advanced simulators will provide vehicle handling training for a wide range of machinery, from cranes to fire engines.

The immersive room creates a hands-on learning experience, enabling instructors and students to magnify objects of interest.

The hair studio, which was a commercial salon and not a learning space for students, has already moved out of the space and has been relocated nearby.

The funding to create the immersive space has been provided from the Government’s Local Skills Improvement Fund, a project which aims to support local people into work.

The college will also be encouraging local businesses to get involved, by using the technology to train staff.

Joseph Ballentine is Director of Customer Engagement at Nescot College.

“We're incredibly excited, as a college, our purpose is to create amazing experiences to enable people to learn and to meet all learners needs in a safe environment.”

“It's incredibly important for colleges and educational institutions to invest in digital technology because what we have now in society has massively transformed.”

“We're able to showcase and utilise technology that learners are going to be using in the workplace, providing experiences that reflect the type of technology that they're going to be using, not only potentially in the workplace, but also at home.”

“Normally a learner would have to go to a hospital to experience what it was like, to experience the sounds, the physical experience of being there, but we can recreate that experience in a very safe environment, and that's really important for inclusion.”

“We have an open day at Nescott on Wednesday the 22nd of May, starting at 4:30, for anyone who would like to come and speak with our curriculum teams and learn more about what Nescot can offer.”

Hear all the latest news from across the UK on the hour, every hour, on Greatest Hits Radio on DAB, smartspeaker, at greatesthitsradio.co.uk, and on the Rayo app.