As the pandemic has been wreaking havoc since 2020, we’ve all been forced to live within our bubbles. The lack of opportunities to mingle socially has started affecting our mental wellbeing. All over the globe, people have been working on ways to tackle the mental anguish that has crept into all of us who work/study from home.
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While this social isolation has affected all of us, students might feel the pinch a little harder because they lose out on the freedom and exposure they get on their campuses. Students who’ve tasted this freedom and exposure long to regain it. Freshers have not yet had the chance to see the campus of the college they’ve started studying in. And this is the problem that the team of Tathva’21 has tried to tackle using the virtual campus they’ve developed for their techno-management fest – tathva.org.
The students of NIT Calicut created the virtual campus to provide their peers with a small ray of hope. They believe that the virtual campus would help their peers look forward to the adventures they’ll have on the campus once the pandemic dies down. The virtual campus they’ve developed lets the viewer take a tour around the NIT campus and visit the buildings where the events of Tathva’21 will be conducted, albeit online.
Also Read: NIT Calicut’s Tathva 21 Is All About The Metaverse
The team used Blender to design the website, and Three.js, NextJS and Node.js to bring it to life. And while all the bells and whistles work as expected, you’d be mistaken if you thought that it was all smooth sailing. The team had to do extensive testing and ensure that the website worked as planned on a wide range of devices. They had to reduce the size of the virtual campus they’d created from 300 MB to 10 MB so it would work on low-end devices. At the end of the day, all their hard work has paid off and all of us can take a tour of NIT Calicut from the comfort of our homes.
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Many of us might be cynical and wonder if a website would help tackle the angst that the pandemic has caused. But it is heartwarming to see a group of individuals take up the initiative and put in the effort to try to make a difference.
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