Out and about

Once again a brave bunch of students and tutors headed off into the big wide world of Second Life for a trip organised by Martin Pattle.

Second Life’s 6th birthday celebrations provided the scene for the latest OU outing.

As usual the meeting point for the outing was the Open Arms. A notecard giver had been set up at the meeting point to give out a notecard containing a list of suggested landmarks for us to explore. The SL6B exhibition covered 16 sims in a square island. Our landmarks concentrated on the east side of the island but everyone was free to explore wherever they fancied and encourage to relay back places of interest via the Open University group chat channel. A tram ride was available to tour the whole area taking 35 minutes but it wasn’t always a successful exercise!

First on the list was Tomorrows Enchantments based at SL6B Atomic and this is where most of us headed first. This exhibition housed a crazy bubble ride which everyone was keen to try out while the exhibits glowing colours produced a spectacular effect especially under midnight setting. As seems usual at SL birthday exhibitions the lag was causing a few problems for some people although most seemed to be getting along just fine.

The group chat was lively with people sharing their views on the places they had found and links to other displays for us to visit. One of my favourite places was Culture Soup, a photo exhibition based at SL6B Callisto. This was one of the least crowded places I went to and so I took the opportunity to have a good wander round. The walls were adorned with snapshots from SL with displays of flowers in vases dotted around the exhibit.

Another place that caught my eye was Flora Virtua Exotica based at SL6B Nucleus. This colourful display featured virtual ‘flowers’ and was much more expansive than first meets the eye. The list of landmarks provided for us by Martin ensured there was something for everyone, with exhibits ranging from flowers to particles, and earthquakes to gay history.

The outing ran over two nights to give everyone the best possible chance of visiting the exhibits and LOL! would like to thank Martin for organising it.