Museum Collaboration on the South Australian Virtual Reality Experience

During 2023, researchers from Sydney, Australia and students from Kaiserslautern, Germany developed a virtual dive to the wreck of South Australian. This English barque played a notable role in the state’s early colonial history and its shipwreck site is the oldest known in South Australia.
Dr James Hunter, one of the project leaders and the museum’s Curator of Naval Heritage and Archaeology, collaborated with Professor Holger Deuter and his Virtual Design students at the University of Applied Sciences, Kaiserslautern to develop a Virtual Reality Experience (VRE) for South Australian. The goal was to make the shipwreck site and its story accessible in an exciting and immersive way.
The South Australian Virtual Reality Experience is a global collaboration that has involved a motivated team of students, researchers, and educators, and has effectively demonstrated how 21st century maritime archaeology can be conveyed to a broad, diverse audience with VRE technologies.