A Virtual Reality Game Exploring the History and Construction of an American Icon
This game was funded by a Digital Projects for the Public grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, and created in collaboration with scholars from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and the Universityof Massachusetts, Dartmouth.
It allows players to explore and learn about the construction of the Hoover Dam from the perspective of a photographer who lived in Las Vegas and chronicled the construction of the dam from its beginning.
VR Hoover Dam is historically-based, educational game centered on the construction of one of the most iconic structures in the world. It combines cutting edge-technologies with current humanities scholarship to create an interactive, 4-dimensional game that takes place within the landscape of the 1930s Black Canyon site where Hoover Dam was built.
It allows players to interact with and learn about historical figures, get a sense of what it was like to live and work at the dam, and to understand Hoover Dam’s tremendous importance and wide-ranging impacts.
VR Hoover Dam supplements the study of a range of topics such as politics, economics, architecture and design, the history of labor, the New Deal era, workplace safety, Native American culture, westward migration, the Great Depression, the history of technological innovation, STEM education, and climate change, as well as issues of social and economic justice and struggle, and civil rights.
