A famous Antarctic explorer's hut is opening its doors to the public for the first time using new virtual reality headset technology.
The Antarctic Heritage Trust, in collaboration with Auckland-based virtual reality tech company StaplesVR, has launched the virtual reality experience of Captain Robert Falcon Scott's Discovery Hut, with the hope it can be used as an educational tool to inspire future explorers, scientists and conservationists.
Inside the experience, participants are faced with more than 500 artefacts that look exactly how the explorers left it, complete with clothes hanging to dry and food boiling in a pot.
There are also interactive elements such as coming face-to-face with penguins, feeding huskies, meeting explorers and viewing the icy Antarctic environment surrounding the hut from above with a ride in a hydrogen balloon just like Scott did.
StaplesVR technical manager Krystal Paraone said a lot of effort had gone into ensuring the experience was designed to within millimetre accuracy of the real thing, saying it was "match for match".
"It was really important that they spent a lot of time getting every single detail and there was a lot of work in our pipeline to reiterate to the developers and the artists [that] 'yes that nail is important, that stain is important, that corrosion is important', 'that has a story' and that pushed our team to work incredibly hard to get it looking that real."
"My favourite thing is getting people who have actually been there to go in, and they go 'woah!'."
Paraone said the VR gear was designed with schools in mind as it was portable, easy to charge and completely untethered while the programme included "gamified" aspects to keep young people engaged and interested.
"Yes we have games, but we also want them to look at these the same way that the scientists do and feel as excited, the same way the Trust does as well."
Paraone said it took more than 1000 hours and "a lot of love" from the team of 15 to ensure key learning milestones were incorporated into the experience.
The hard work appeared to have paid off, as Christchurch East School student Damian Mandri told 1News it was a "very good experience".
"It felt so good because we were there but it wasn't cold. It was cool feeding the penguins and going on the balloon.
"It felt like I was really in the air, but I wasn't. And it was so scary because when you look down you can see the snow," he said.
Another student from Christchurch East who tried the experience, Khshaal Jayant, said it felt so real he "almost forgot about the outside world".
He said he played virtual reality games before, and described this as different to those but still "interesting".
"I really want to go there [to Antarctica], which I might plan when I'm older, you just never know."
Antarctic Heritage Trust's executive director Francesca Eathorne said Discovery Hut was significant in that it was the first expedition base built on Antarctica's Ross Island and was used by every subsequent expedition that visited Ross Island in the heroic era.
"It's even more special because of that history.
"Part of our mission is to inspire that next generation of explorers, so to hear young people like Damian and Khshaal say that they might want to go to Antartcia and be scientists or explorers, well it's so exciting to be able to inspire them."
Eathorne said the experience would make its way across the country and schools, community groups, festivals or public venues could fill out a form on the Trust's website to register for a visit.
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