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Stanford Medicine – Rodriguez Lab

From the summer of 2020 until the Autumn of 2021, I have been working as a Virtual Reality Developer at the Rodriguez Translational Therapeutics Lab to design and build custom spaces in Virtual Reality as a way to analyze patterns and research effective brain-based treatments, ultimately investigating a novel intervention for hoarding disorder.

Here is a video produced by the Stanford School of Medicine, which shows the technology in action!

*Since the built worlds are NDA-protected to respect patient privacy, please contact for more information*

Hoarding Disorder

Hoarding disorder is a persistent difficulty discarding or parting with possessions because of a perceived need to save them. A person with hoarding disorder experiences distress at the thought of getting rid of the items. Excessive accumulation of items, regardless of actual value, occurs.

Mayo Clinic definition of Hoarding Disorder

Buried in Treasures Workshop (BIT)

The Buried in Treasures Workshop (BIT) has been proven to demonstrate improvements in the symptoms of hoarding disorder, as evidence shows that in-home decluttering sessions allow participants to understand the motions of discarding items and solidify the skills learned in the BIT group more easily. To alleviate the pressures and stresses of having to permanently discard personal items, we are recreating patients’ living spaces in virtual reality, so that they can practice discarding their possessions.

The aim is to have patients go through the motions of discarding, recycling, and donating their possessions enough times so that they can apply these skills to their everyday life.

For more information, please reference this link.

The Investigation

During this study, we have been recreating the living spaces of 9 individuals.

The Documentation:
In-home visits to document 360 degree pictures and videos of the living spaces, and individual pictures of 30 items of varying levels of difficulty discarding (from photo albums to receipts).
*Due to COVID-19 changes, patients are now documenting their items and rooms on their own, with virtual guidance

The Importation:
I converted each of the patients’ 30 individual items into 2-Dimensional billboards so that participants can interact with their objects, move them around the room, and practice “discarding” them into either a trash can, recycling bin, or donation box.
I searched 3D modeling websites such as SketchFab and the Unity Asset Store to find 3D models that would contribute to the recreation of the patient’s home scene–from couches to posters to rugs, etc. For the sake of patient privacy and HIPAA code, I am not able to share images of any of the participants’ worlds.

*Not actually an asset used in the project, merely for the purpose of understanding 3D modeling and assets

The Design:
I imported the assets into the Unity project, placing each element into the newly created “room” so as to imagine everything virtually.
In this step of the design process, I also scaled different objects, added colliders to elements and baked lighting–added touches to the rooms to better match the room to the original reference.

The Functionality:
I added scripts to every single one of the billboarded objects that the patients would be “discarding” so that they could interact with the objects and practice “throwing them away”. The participants could interact with the objects and simultaneously teleport around the room, so that they could imagine the living space without that specific item.
I added RigidBody functions and mesh colliders to each of the objects so that they objects could be manipulated and picked up.
I also edited and organized the items within the space, so that they would be an appropriate scale to the participant in the room, and they could truly envision themselves in their homes.

A demo run in the Virtual Reality space, with the full setup
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Unity Programming

Stanford Rodriguez Lab Hoarding Disorder Project, 2020

Worked with the Stanford Rodriguez Translational Therapeutics Lab under the Stanford University School of Medicine. I recreated patients’ living spaces in Unity to allow them to simulate the actions and emotions associated with discarding certain belongings. These virtual reality projects are used to determine novel interventions for hoarding disorder.

ColorBound Final Project, 2019

Final Project to demonstrate the destructive nature of gender roles in society and to highlight the chaotic bliss associated with the dismantling of stereotypes.

Dance With Me, 2019

This project emulates the essence of a silent disco, where two participants can interact in the same virtual reality landscape and listen to completely different music. The dancer’s movements are tracked by glowing blue trails, so that their unique dance movements can be observed by the other person.

Speak Up!, 2019

Voice input interaction project, where participants are forced to use their voice and SPEAK UP in order to activate the programming, exhibiting the need to use a voice in the current political climate

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ColorBound, 2019

Even as we move further into the 21st Century, it seems as though gender roles in society are extremely difficult to dismantle. Although there are great strides in gender equality, it still stands that women of different racial backgrounds earn significantly less than each white man does. Further still, the current craze with gender roles marks everything in society–jobs, toys, activities, and even colors–as gendered, male or female. I wanted to create a Unity program that would highlight the need to dismantle these harmful gender roles and stereotypes in society that ultimately restrict even children at a young age.

Brainstorming/Ideas/Inspiration

The final project is a networked Virtual Reality Simulation, meaning that two people are involved in the simulation at once. The two participants start off at opposite ends of the virtual reality space, with one half of the room lined with pink furniture and stuffed animals (stereotypically “feminine”) and the other half of the room is lined with blue furniture and toy trucks (stereotypically “masculine”). The two participants are free to move about in their respective spaces around the room, but are not able to enter into the other participant’s space. This is because the participants are divided by a translucent wall that they can see through by not pass through.

Final Project Recordings

After a brief period of time, the participants are surrounded by white orbs that fall down and surround each of the participants. As the orbs start to interact with certain objects around the room, they turn into the respective pink/blue of the room. As time continues to pass, the orbs start morphing into the respective toys (stuffed animal/toy truck) of the room, increasingly filling the participant’s mind with these gender stereotypes.

ColorBound Final Project Recording

However, as time passes, the participants begin to fully acknowledge the presence of the other room that they can see but not enter, creating a “waving through the window” effect. When the participants activate a secret mechanism, the wall between the two sides of the room are brought down (coded to be at the same time for each room) and. they could move about the entire room as they please. The organic shapes of the toy trucks and stuffed animals move about the room, creating a chaotic blend of blue and pink, toys and teddies. This is a representation of the chaotic bliss that accompanies the destruction of gender stereotypes.

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Dance With Me, 2019

Silent discos are supposedly a new craze in partying and socializing, but it actually originated in the 20th Century and gained more popularity as we moved into the 21st Century. It is founded on an interesting concept: participants of the silent disco wear headphones that play different songs, so each participant can enjoy a different rhythm of music as they please. Additionally, is quite beneficial for those who often face sensory overload in social settings.

Dance With Me Recording

The Virtual Reality landscape observes two participants are joined together in a networked simulation, where they can observe each other’s actions simultaneously, as if they are acting in the same landscape, as they are.

The landscape design is an entirely dark dance floor with a giant neon sign that bears the logo “Dance Club” to really emphasize the nightclub setting. The way the networked simulation works is that the interactive orb that starts in the center of the room can be picked up and carried to one of three glowing circles on the dance floor. The activator acts as a trigger, playing music as long as the orb is in contact with the glowing circle. The music is asynchronous, as in participant 1 could be listening to classical music as participant 2 could be listening to rock music.

To accentuate the atmosphere of the nightclub setting, the participant’s controllers are tracked by glowing blue trails, so each participant can see the other’s movements as they dance to the music they are listening to. This results in an interesting phenomenon in that they can each assume the kind of the music the other person in listening to just by observing their arm movements. Specifically, user 1 could be making more fluid dance movements to classical music while user 2 could be dancing in a more energetic and rapid manner to upbeat music.
This captures the essence of a silent disco because if a third person observer were to be in the same landscape without any headphones, they would be in complete silence observing two people dance to completely different music.

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Speak Up!, 2019

Nowadays, our voices are so much more important than ever. For example, the current political climate observes so many already underrepresented voices being stifled and silenced. I wanted to highlight this censorship through this piece, which requires the participant’s vocal input in order to function. The character of former presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren is only activated when the participant vocally calls out, “IMPEACH!” These two syllables are so important, representative of actual change that needs to take place, for the public to vocally express their discontent with the current workings of the world. The figure ultimately does not represent the political figure but rather the rest of us as a voting democracy on whose shoulders the responsibility rests to take action for ourselves and call for change.

Program Interactions

The design of the simulation landscape is rather simple to accentuate the need for participant interaction. The sky is a brilliant sunset of purple and orange hues, as the sunset represents changes waxing and waning. Similarly the trees represent growth, as the country should make strides to grow in spite of recent events.

Speak Up! Screen Recording
External Interaction

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