Outfield Decision Making

Project Overview

This project was completed as part of my Seminar 1 course in my Masters of Educational Innovation, Technology, and Entrepreneurship program. I designed a virtual reality experience where athletes work through a series of game-like situations in which they have to decide what to do as an outfielder. This project was designed with middle-school aged athletes in mind — players who have the basic skills to catch and throw but are not yet confident in the mental side of the game.

The project consists of two parts: an immersive XR experience built in Wonda Spaces, and a full lesson plan for coaches and instructors to follow. The experience places users in a first-person outfield perspective using 360-degree photos taken at the UNC softball field, challenging them to make real game-time decisions under pressure.

Context and Objectives

This lesson and experience can be used in virtual reality or directly in a browser. It is intended for young athletes — particularly middle school softball players — who are not yet fully confident in their decision-making on the field. A lot of young athletes face burnout from constant repetition and monotonous practices. This tool gives them a fun, new way to develop their softball IQ without needing a full field, live game conditions, or even additional players.

Background & Context

To create this design, I had to navigate tools I was largely unfamiliar with. I had never created such an extensive scene or experience in Wonda Spaces, nor had I ever used a 360-degree GoPro. Luckily, the GoPro was intuitive to use. The bigger challenge was finding the right balance in Wonda Spaces — creating scenarios that felt immersive enough for young athletes, while also keeping the interface simple and the decision-making clearly structured. I also leaned on my own teammates, asking them to serve as baserunners so I could photograph real game-like setups at the UNC softball field.

Goals & Objectives

The lesson plan contains four clear learning objectives for instructors and coaches to anchor the experience around:

• Objective 1: Athletes understand their positioning in the outfield. Knowing where you are on the field determines what plays you are able to make.
• Objective 2: Athletes understand their responsibilities based on what outfield position they are playing. Each position comes with specific expectations and it is critical to internalize those.
• Objective 3: Athletes can explain their reasoning for decisions made in the immersive experience. Even when wrong, building the confidence to own a decision and defend it is a core goal of this lesson.
• Objective 4: Athletes understand how to navigate different scenarios in game-like situations. Getting mental reps outside of a live game environment prepares players for anything that may come.

Success Criteria

Success is measured across three components. In the XR experience itself, athletes earn points for correct decisions. Their written reflection worksheet is scored on quality of reasoning and demonstrated understanding of key concepts. Finally, active engagement during group discussion is observed and assessed by the coach or instructor.

Implementation & Execution

To build this project, I started by consulting with my current UNC teammates to identify the most critical and common decision-making scenarios outfielders face in real games. From there, I used backward design — locking in what I wanted learners to walk away with before building anything.

Key Activities

Once the lesson plan was finalized, I recruited teammates to act as baserunners and used a 360-degree GoPro to photograph game-like scenarios at the UNC softball field. I then uploaded those images into Wonda Spaces and built out five interactive scenarios, each with embedded audio, clickable hotspots, quiz questions, and immediate feedback. I also used my iPad to screen-record and annotate field diagrams, showing the path of the ball so users could better visualize each play. Finally, I created the student worksheet and the grading rubric to round out the full lesson package.

Tools & Technologies

Each tool served a specific purpose in building the experience. The 360-degree GoPro captured immersive images of the UNC softball field with real runners on base to place learners on the field. Wonda Spaces hosted the full learning experience — enabling the five-scenario structure, quiz functionality, sound effects, clickable hotspots, and student progress tracking. My iPad was used to screen-record and edit visual diagrams of ball paths for each scenario. PixaBay provided free audio files to add crowd noise and game atmosphere inside Wonda Spaces.

Challenges & Solutions

The primary challenge was calibrating Wonda Spaces for a middle school audience. Getting the immersion level right — making the scenes feel real without overwhelming first-time VR users — took significant iteration. I also had to learn the platform's quiz and hotspot tools from scratch. Working through each scenario carefully and testing the experience from the perspective of a young athlete helped me find the right balance.

Results & Outcomes

The project was submitted and evaluated in my MEITE 767 Seminar course, where it received a passing grade. Beyond the academic result, the project produced a fully functional, deployable learning experience.

Deliverables

The project produced three tangible deliverables: the Wonda Spaces XR experience (accessible via browser at wvr.li/mzu9y1 or VR code 774-9281), a full printed lesson plan for coaches, and a grading rubric for assessing student performance across all three components.

Impact

This lesson is designed to address a real gap in youth softball development — helping athletes build the mental side of the game without requiring access to a full field or live competition. Beyond softball, the lesson builds transferable skills: critical thinking under pressure, risk assessment, and processing multiple variables at once. These are skills valuable in academics and everyday life, which broadens the audience well beyond just softball players.

Reflection & Learning

This project pushed me well outside my comfort zone technically, and I came out of it with both new skills and a clearer sense of how immersive technology can serve learners in unexpected ways.

Key Learnings

• Backward design is a powerful framework — knowing my end goals before building kept the project focused and purposeful.
• Immersive technology lowers the barrier to practice by creating "mental reps" that aren't possible in a traditional setting.
• Designing for a younger audience requires extra attention to clarity and simplicity — both in the experience itself and in the language of the lesson plan.
• Real-world collaboration (recruiting teammates as baserunners, using an actual softball field) made the experience significantly more authentic.

What Went Well

The authenticity of the scenarios was a real strength. Because I drew on my own experience as a collegiate outfielder and consulted with teammates, the situations felt genuinely game-like. The combination of the immersive experience with a structured lesson plan and grading rubric also made the project feel complete and deployable — not just a demo.

Areas for Improvement

Given more time, I would have loved to test the experience with actual middle school athletes and gather their feedback before finalizing. I would also explore adding more scenarios and expanding the experience to cover infield positions, making the tool useful for a full team rather than just outfielders.

Future Recommendations

The natural next step for this project is real-world piloting with a middle school team. Gathering data on engagement, decision accuracy, and pre/post softball IQ would help validate the experience's effectiveness. From there, the lesson framework could be expanded to cover additional positions and sports, creating a scalable model for immersive athletic decision-making training. There is also strong potential in making this available as a low-cost resource for Title I schools and programs with limited access to coaching staff or practice facilities.

Conclusion

This project brought together my identity as an athlete, my passion for educational equity, and my developing skills in immersive technology. It demonstrated that meaningful learning experiences don't always require expensive equipment or a lot of space — sometimes a 360-degree camera, a creative platform, and a clear instructional goal are enough to put a learner right in the middle of the action. I'm proud of what this project became, and I believe it represents the kind of low-tech, high-impact innovation that can make a real difference for young athletes everywhere.