Over 1000 members of the Team GB delegation, including Team GB athletes and performance staff members, could access the software to experience the environment in Tokyo ahead of the Games. This included Team GB’s most successful gymnast and the University’s Team GB ambassador; Max Whitlock MBE.
Max said: “If you have never been to an Olympics before you don’t know what these environments are like.
“There could be a lot of athletes who are very young and very inexperienced in some areas and may feel anxious about going into different environments. If they are in that position, they can have a look at this, get that experience and actually feel like once they step through those doors they know where everything is, and that’s quite cool.
“It could help people keep a lot calmer and feel a lot more at ease when they go around the different environments.”
The project was first proposed by Jason Hayhurst and Dr Andrew King from the Faculty of Arts, Culture and Education at the University. It was delivered by Lampada whose skills and expertise in developing videos helped achieve the 360˚ immersive surroundings.
The Team GB Performance Lodge was located within Odaiba Gakuen School. Here the University project team were able to visit and produce panoramic footage of each area. This footage was then modelled to replicate how it would appear when Team GB arrived.
The team had to include items such as gym mats, posters, gym equipment and flags.