Virtual reality is one of the best tools we have for making an idea land. You can read about the March on Washington, or you can stand in the crowd. You can lecture on aphasia, or you can lose your own words for twenty minutes. 71 North keeps a library of headsets and curated VR experiences in the Huskieverse Lab, and it is open to the whole NIU community.

You don’t need any VR experience, and you don’t need to bring anything. We handle the hardware, the setup, and the walkthrough — you just show up.

  Book a VR Experience

Open to NIU students, faculty, and staff. Sign in with your NIU account.
Most experiences need at least 24 hours' notice so we can have everything loaded and ready — classes and groups, more.

Students

Grab a headset, bring a friend, take a break that is actually worth the walk.

Faculty & Instructors

Put VR to work in a lesson without becoming the IT department.

Staff & Departments

Team days, wellness breaks, and campus visits that people actually remember.

For students

Booking a session takes about a minute. Pick an open slot on the Huskieverse booking calendar, come down to the studio in the lower level of Founders Memorial Library, and one of our team members will fit you for a headset and get you started.

A few things worth knowing:

• Give us a day. Most experiences need at least 24 hours’ notice so we can get the right title loaded and a headset charged and waiting for you. Same-day walk-ins are not something we can promise.
• No experience required. If you have never worn a headset, that’s great! Book a First Steps appointment and you’ll be up to snuff in about a half hour!
• It is free. This is your studio. There is no charge for students.
• Come curious. Some of our experiences are documentaries, some are art pieces, and some are just a good time.

Not sure what to try? Start with the VR Playlist — a curated lineup of short narrative experiences we picked specifically for students who have never done this before.

For faculty and instructors

Bring us a learning outcome, not a headset model. The most common thing we hear is “I think VR could work for my class, but I have no idea where to start.” That is exactly the conversation we want to have.

We help you find the right experience

Tell us the unit you are teaching and what you want students to walk away understanding. We will search our library — and beyond it — for something that actually serves that outcome, and we will be honest with you when VR is the wrong tool for the job. A good immersive lesson replaces a moment of abstraction with a moment of experience; it does not replace your teaching.

We run the session so you can teach

Bring your class to the Huskieverse Lab and our team handles the logistics: device setup, headset fitting, sanitation between users, rotation timing, and troubleshooting the one headset that always decides to act up. You stay free to facilitate the discussion, which is where the learning actually happens.

We are in the lower level of Founders Memorial Library, so for most courses this is a short walk rather than a field trip. Let us know your class size and we will tell you how to structure the rotation so everyone gets a turn inside your class period.

Start the conversation early. Twenty-four hours is the floor for one person grabbing a headset, but a class visit is a different animal — it is an event we plan with you, not a slot you pull off a calendar. We need to reserve the lab, pull in enough staff to run your rotation, load and test every experience, and work around whatever else is booked that week. Do not wait until the week of. Come to us while the lesson is still taking shape and we will build the session around it.

We help you build the debrief

The headset is the easy part. We can help you design the pre-brief and the debrief around it — what to prime students to notice, what to ask afterward, and how to connect twenty minutes of embodied experience back to your reading, your assignment, or your assessment.

Ways to work with us

• A single class session — one lesson, one experience, in the Huskieverse Lab.
• A recurring lab component — VR as a standing part of a course.
• A full class in residence — hold the course itself in our space through our Classroom Experience service.
• A conversation first — book a consultation and we will figure out together whether this is a fit.

Talk to us about your course Try a headset yourself first

For staff and departments

You do not need a syllabus to work with us. Bring your team down to the Huskieverse Lab for:

• Team days and retreats — a shared experience beats another icebreaker.
• Wellness breaks — guided mindfulness and meditation sessions in VR.
• A stop on a campus tour — work the lab into an orientation, a visiting group’s itinerary, or an open house route.
• Professional development — see what your students are learning to build, and try the technology before you have to make decisions about it.

Reach out with your date and rough head count and we will tell you what is possible. Give us at least 24 hours — more if you are bringing a large group — so we can have the lab set up and every experience ready to go.

What you can experience

Our library shifts as we add new work, but here is a sample of what is on the shelf:

• MLK: Now Is the Time — a modern interpretation of the March on Washington that moves you through housing, policing, and voting as a participant rather than an observer.
• EMPEROR — a father’s aphasia told from inside the experience of losing language.
• Gargoyle Doyle — a cinematic narrative on stone, metal, and centuries of a cathedral.
• Kristine Is Not Well — social media, influence, and the part you play in shaping it.
• The Line — a hands-on miniature world about routine, love, and breaking the pattern.
• Traveling While Black — civil rights history through the lived experience of movement and restriction.
• The Public Health Playlist — Plague of Athens, Pollinator Park, Nano, and more, built around prevention and community wellness.
• Anne Frank House VR — walk through a digital recreation of the Secret Annex.
• Tripp — guided meditation and mindfulness for a genuinely restorative twenty minutes.

Browse everything we have written about immersive work under the VR tag, or see what our student teams are building in Huskieverse Projects.

How a session works

1. Book a time. Students and individuals use the booking calendar — most experiences need at least 24 hours’ notice to load and stage, so last-minute requests may not be possible. Classes, groups, and departments should skip the calendar and contact us instead, well ahead of your date, so we can plan and staff it properly.
2. Tell us what you are after. A study break, a specific title, a lesson outcome, a team event — it changes what we recommend.
3. Show up. We fit the headset, sanitize between users, walk you through the controls, and stay nearby.
4. Talk about it. The best part of VR usually happens after the headset comes off. We will make room for that.

Questions and comfort

If you wear glasses, get motion sick, need a seated option, or have any question about whether this will work for you, tell us when you book. We would much rather adjust the plan up front than have you cut a session short — and there is almost always a way to make it work.

Have a question we have not answered here? Get in touch and we will get back to you.

  Book a VR Experience