A talk from the Training & Education Track at AWE USA 2019 - the World's #1 XR Conference & Expo in Santa Clara, California May 29-31, 2019. Bill Meyer (Virtual Science Center): Turning Kids on to STEM by Letting Them Discover How VR and AR Tricks Our Brain How exactly does Virtual and Augmented Reality game human perception so things we know aren’t there seem to exist? Can simple and robust public learning experiences empower and delight people of all ages to experiment and discover the answers for themselves? The answer is yes. This talk will present examples and discuss how UX best practices can be applied to create effective inquiry-based learning experiences that unpack seemingly complex modern technologies. Through iterative design coupled with repeated visitor testing, we deconstructed the surprising perceptual science and technology behind VR and AR into 16 cool hands-on experiences that spark “aha” moments and minimize the need for wordy explanations. We keep concepts intuitive, playful, and fun to understand. Our traveling exhibition goal is to show visitors they're smarter than they suspect, inspire students to aim for STEM careers, and help teachers lead deeper NGSS and Common Core dives both in and out of the classroom. This 45 second video shows an example exhibit and part of our visitor testing process: https://youtu.be/Sgh0Sys57lY Without needing to learn the terms, visitors discover the secrets of how things like Motion Parallax, Stereo Vision, 3D Audio Spatialization, Outside-In, and Inside-Out Tracking work in concert to make virtual, augmented and mixed reality experiences possible. https://awexr.com