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As part of an exploratory outreach project, these ten 7th and 8th grade girls from Urbana Middle School are collaborating with each other to build virtual worlds in the CAVE (Cave Automatic Virtual Environment) facility located on the third floor of the Beckman Institute at the University of Illinois. The CAVE is part of the virtual reality laboratory at NCSA (National Center for Supercomputing Applications). During October, November and December of 2002, students will utilize an innovative CAVE program called "ShadowLight" developed by University of Illinois student Kalev Leetaru for a forty-five minutes every other week to create their unique virtual worlds.

Co-leaders of the project are:
Dr. Umesh Thakkar, NCSA and GSLIS, UIUC
Pam Van Walleghen, Technology Coordinator, Urbana Middle School
Renee Cooper, Art Teacher, Urbana Middle School
Kevin Erlinger, Science Teacher, Urbana Middle School