Drop Pod Qualification

In order to qualify for command of the Drop Pods on the Prometheus, I had to follow a series of tasks. These tasks were to Rez (make appear) and DeRez (make disappear) the Drop Pods themselves, take a Drop Pod down the the surface and back up to the ship, then take a Drop Pod to a given vector (<133,60,2272>), and take pictures.

These are some pictures from my trip to the surface:

This is landing on the surface.

This is traveling through space and back to the ship.

Almost made it back to the ship.

Made it back safe.

These are some pictures of my journey to vector <133,60,2272> (which turns out to be the middle of the sky):

Heading down to the mysterious vector <133,60,2272>.

If I step out, I'll continue falling to the surface.

Drop Pod is suspended in mid-air, at vector <133,60,2272>.

Returning safely to the ship.

That was a really exciting adventure. It took me a couple tries to figure out how to sit on the ship and control it, but I got the hang of it.

Security and the Brig

The purpose of this quest was to explore the Brig and get my new security outfit. As a member of the Command team, I can be called upon at any time to put on the vest and help protect my shipmates and our ship. 

In this picture, I am in the Brig, or space ship jail. I have no idea how to use my weapon yet, but that is my next adventure. 

Virtual Hallucinations

Wow! As an Education major with an endorsement in Special Education, I thought I understood what it meant to have schizophrenia, or could at least understand what typically happens in the mind of a person with schizophrenia. I was really wrong.


As one of the quests in my ED TECH 532: Educational Games and Simulations class, I was given the opportunity to use the virtual world, Second Life, to step into the shoes of someone with schizophrenia for a brief amount of time. Of course, this small virtual sampling is minuscule compared to actually suffering from this debilitating mental illness, but it did give me insight as to the types of voices someone may hear and visual hallucinations someone may experience.


Even though I knew the experience wasn't happening in real life, I found myself wanting to examine the items and situations that the voices were telling me was real. For example, one voice mentions picking up and gun and wanting to shoot someone. It was almost second nature to just obey the voices in your head, believing it may be the sub-conscious. In this case, clearly the voices were meant to show the distorted thinking and ideas that individuals with schizophrenia may experience every minute of every day. This simulation was meant to shake reality, and the negative and derogatory voice did just that, create a sense of paranoia and negativity that was difficult to shake after the experience concluded.

As I said in my introduction, wow...


The Virtual Hallucinations map can be found at: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Sedig/32/50/24