Abstract
Innovative and emerging technologies often start their life in science fiction; then over time, they become realities of everyday life. The line between science fiction and reality is at times fine, and the duration between them can be long or short. The technologies that appear in a science fiction one day, often turn up in a university laboratory sometime later. Modern universities commonly profess that the development of innovative technologies is one of their strengths with much of this innovative work being done by postgraduate students and researchers; undergraduate students at the same universities rarely get an opportunity to experience or even know what cutting edge technologies and their uses are being developed in their own university. One of the most eye-catching innovations of our time is that of virtual reality. Virtual reality dates back to at least 1984 with the publication of Neuromancer where Gibson describes cyberspace and virtually enabled interactive computer environments as common day occurrences. Virtual reality environments have been described by McGreevey (1993) as "artificial worlds of sensory experience, or immerses the user in representations of real spatial environments that might otherwise be inaccessible by virtue of distance, scale, time, or physical incompatibilities of the user and the environment" (1993, np). VR is no longer a domain of science fiction, it is now a reality as the technologies associated with the VR experience have been developed, are affordable, and are being adopted in education, business and entertainment sectors. This paper describes a University funded project that gave undergraduate students access to several pieces of VR equipment in an attempt to assist them in developing an informed opinion of the use of VR in products and services. In additional the paper details a study undertaken that explored undergraduate students' perceptions of a virtual reality (VR) experience, and where they see VR could be used in the near future.