UST Business Simulation
My experience developing an administrator UI for VR simulations
Year: 2023
My Role: Full-stack Developer
The Immersive Business Simulator is a VR environment where students manage their own coffee shop. They make a variety of business decisions, from pricing and inventory management to marketing and staffing, all of which impact their virtual business's outcome. The simulations is driven using formulas and data from the real world to provide a realistic scenario. This hands-on, interactive experience allows students to see the real-time business impact of their decisions.
The Overview page provides teachers a general sense of student performance
The Teams page allows teachers to group students and assign VR simulations
The Logic page is where teachers configure general settings for the VR simulation
The Logic page is where teachers configure general settings for the VR simulation
The Challenge page is allows teachers to configure more specific settings for the VR simulation
The Challenge page is allows teachers to configure more specific settings for the VR simulation
The Reports page provides additional analytics and student scores
For this project I worked as the full-stack developer to create the backend system and frontend administrator interface used (shown above) to drive the simulation. Other members on the team were responsible for the VR experience.
Navigating Complexity and Flexibility
When I first started working on the project, one of the main challenges was understanding how all the pieces would fit together. Many aspects were still to be determined, and the system had to be designed to be flexible. This required careful planning and a forward-thinking approach to ensure that the solution could adapt to evolving requirements.
Collaborating closely with the designer was essential to creating an interface that met the educator's needs. The designer provided rough wireframes, which served as a starting point for our discussions. We had daily calls where I asked clarifying questions to ensure the product met the designer's specifications.
Overcoming Backend Challenges
Developing the backend system posed its own set of challenges. The teachers provided extremely comprehensive excel sheets which took the student's decisions as input and output income statements, balance sheets, student grades, etc. I then replicated the formulas from the excel sheet into JavaScript.
Deploying Robust Infrastructure
To ensure the system's reliability and scalability, I set up AWS S3 buckets, Amplify hosting, and an EC2 instance. This infrastructure supports the seamless operation of the simulator and the admin interface, demonstrating my ability to manage both frontend and backend development as well as cloud deployment. ReactJS was used for the frontend and BootStrap grid was used to ensure responsiveness.
Reflection
Through this project, I gained valuable experience in navigating complexity, collaborating effectively with diverse teams, and delivering impactful solutions under tight deadlines. These skills are invaluable in the fast-paced environment of startups, where adaptability and innovation are key to success. Moving forward, I am excited to apply these lessons and continue making meaningful contributions to innovative projects.