DUBLIN, Ohio — Cedarville University Industrial and Innovative Design major Joshua Stover dreams of a job in automotive design.
“It started with my dad’s influence. He always had me doing carpentry,” said Stover, a Xenia native. “I got into school and realized I was good at art. This is a good balance of those two things.”
One of his assignments this semester at the Industrial and Innovative Design program at Dublin’s International Center for Creativity is creating a BMW-inspired concept car with the Meta Quest 2 VR headset.
Stover, a senior, will soon enter the ultra-competitive design industry, and VR will better help him get inside the mind of a designer.
“There’s a lot of cynics out there, and there’s a lot of people that want to tell you what you should have done, and that is the mentality of a designer. We look at products that already exist, and we say, well, what you should have done is this,” says Stover.
“Taking 2D to 3D is the main goal of VR and it’s kind of what we found to be most valuable,” says instructor Jacob Tesmer.
Tesmer is one of the instructors for the Industrial and Innovative Design program that includes more than thirty Cedarville University juniors and seniors
The former IID program graduate says while it does take time to master this craft, the ability to design using VR is starting to make an impact in many industries.
“The automotive industry and possibly footwear industries have kind of expressed in that. But it is something that’s becoming a tool, that’s becoming much more familiar to industrial designers. And it’s something that I think we’re going to have to engage with more as the industry starts to adopt it,” says Tesmer.
Stover plans to graduate in May and sees himself starting out in product design and working his way up to motorcycle or car design.
And while his path may take him to the west coast or overseas, he’s optimistic that gained experience may one day lead back to the buckeye state.
“Automotive job, doing design like this in Ohio would be great,” says Stover.
