Stations were set up around the Canon Activities Center with a variety of gaming consoles, such as the Wii, the PlayStation, the Xbox, and the Virtual Reality station for Beat Saber for the Gaming Activity hosted by Seasider Sports and Activities on Sept. 22. Students could also opt to bring their own laptops and meet at the tables in the center to play online games with their group of friends.
Brandyn Akana, senior manager for Seasider Sports and Activities shared the conceptualization and preparation they went through for this activity. “We just wanted to kind of get a better reach of our students here at BYU-Hawaii, so we thought of something new, exciting, kind of a variety of activities – so, we came up with Gaming Night...
“I think we have a lot of students here that love gaming, whether it be… on their cellphones, on the computers, or on TVs, so we were able to kind of bring something that is interesting to a lot of our students here at BYU-Hawaii.”
Opapo Fonoimoana, owner of VR Junkies located at Ala Moana, shared how he and Seasider Sports and Activities teamed up for this event. “We thought it would be a good fit to bring a couple machines down and just let the kids here experience [virtual reality]. I feel like a lot of people don’t really know what [virtual reality] can do. They have a skewed picture, maybe they’ve tried the phone thing and they think that that’s it but, there’s a lot more to it.”
When asked how the students knew about the event, Hayden Geddes, a junior from Washington explained that she found out about the activity through “posters on the wall and the new app, Corq.” Geddes also added, “It’s a great stress relief from all the assignments that have been going on.”
Hao Le, a student from Vietnam, expressed her thoughts about the activity. “I love it! It was absolutely amazing. I love it that the school hold the event for us like this so we can experience [it]. I think it would be great for learning experience as well, not for gaming experience only, but also for learning about the VR and about video games.”
Jared Kaonohi, a senior from Hawaii also shared his experience about playing with VR for the first time. “At the beginning of the event I was excited to try the VR. Despite working as a technical consultant, I have never played on a [VR station] before. I have heard about VR and know a little bit of how it works. Being able to play the VR and competing with people in the other games was an excellent evening to have fun and relax.”
After a night full of games and socializing, Akana shared he liked how people were socializing with one another. “You can see the different groups of people, playing their games whatever it may be. Some are doing Wii, some are doing Xbox, others were doing Play Station, others were on their computers, and then of course, almost everybody did the VR Beat Saber. So that was good. I like the socializing and everybody staying in different groups, enjoying and competing against each other.”
Writer: Esther Insigne