RocketCrew VR

Overview

Mobiddiction partnered with Starlight Children’s Foundation to deliver RocketCrew, an immersive virtual reality experience built on PatientVR. It was deployed in the Starlight Express Rooms at Sydney Children’s Hospital, Randwick and Westmead Children’s Hospital, the first two hospitals to trial it.

The experience brought PatientVR into the Starlight Express Rooms, offering children and their families a moment of escape from hospital life. Many of the young patients are living with long-term illnesses and face extended stays away from everyday experiences. The collaboration shows how immersive technology can give children positive distraction during long hospital stays.

Problem Statement

The emotional cost of a long hospital stay

Children facing long-term illnesses often experience extended hospital stays that remove them from familiar environments, friends, family routines, and normal childhood experiences. These young patients frequently endure multiple medical procedures, treatments, and the anxiety that comes with uncertain health outcomes.

Traditional distraction methods in hospital settings, whilst helpful, often lack the immersive quality needed to provide truly effective psychological escape. Many children become restless, anxious, or withdrawn during lengthy treatment periods, impacting both their emotional wellbeing and treatment compliance.

Our Thinking

Mobiddiction’s approach centred on adapting PatientVR to create RocketCrew, an experience designed for the needs of hospitalised children. Our team recognised that successful immersive VR required more than just entertainment. It needed to provide genuine psychological relief whilst being medically appropriate.

The PatientVR platform was developed with healthcare environments in mind, incorporating safety protocols, hygiene considerations, and accessibility features essential for hospital deployment. Unlike consumer VR experiences, PatientVR addresses the specific challenges of medical settings, including equipment compatibility, infection control, and the need for quick, easy transitions between users.

RocketCrew was conceived as an adventure that would appeal to children across various age groups whilst providing the benefits of immersive distraction. The space exploration theme was chosen to inspire wonder and excitement, transporting young patients to an environment completely removed from their medical reality.

Our collaborative approach involved working closely with the Starlight team, hospital staff, and the network of Starlight Express Room team members and volunteers to ensure the experience would fit into existing hospital routines whilst maximising impact. This multi-stakeholder collaboration was essential to creating a solution that met both technical and clinical requirements.

Design

Creating an Age-Appropriate Immersive Adventure for Impact

The design process for RocketCrew required careful consideration of the unique needs of hospitalised children, balancing engaging content with medical safety requirements. Our design team worked extensively with the Starlight team members to create an experience that would be both immersive and thoroughly enjoyable.

The RocketCrew narrative centres around space exploration, allowing children to become crew members on an exciting interstellar mission. The storyline was crafted to promote feelings of empowerment, adventure, and wonder, emotions that can be particularly helpful for children facing medical challenges. The space theme also provided a completely neutral environment, free from any associations with medical settings.

Visual design elements were carefully selected to be vibrant and engaging without being overstimulating for children who might be dealing with treatment side effects. The interface was designed to be intuitive for users of all ages, with simple navigation that doesn’t require complex movements or lengthy instructions.

The team at Mobiddiction had a goal of being up and running in under 10 seconds with no internet connectivity required and a controller free design.

Safety considerations were paramount in the design process. All VR interactions were designed to be gentle and comfortable, avoiding any content that might cause motion sickness or anxiety. The experience was structured in short, manageable segments that could accommodate varying attention spans and energy levels of young patients.

The RocketCrew experience has been absolutely fantastic for kids and young people visiting the Starlight Express Room. We’ve witnessed children who were withdrawn, shy or anxious become animated and excited after their VR journey. The collaboration between Mobiddiction and Starlight has created something truly special and unique that fits our Starlight mythology and at the same time was immersive and FUN for so many kids!

Development

Technical Implementation Across Sydney Children’s Network Facilities

The development phase involved extensive coordination between Mobiddiction’s technical team, and the Starlight Express room coordinators at both Sydney Children’s Hospital, Randwick and Westmead Children’s Hospital. This multi-site deployment required careful planning to ensure consistent experience quality across both locations.

Robust testing protocols were established to ensure the system performed reliably in the hospital environment within the hospital space and the user experience validation testing was done in close supervision of young patients and their families to ensure safety at all times.

The four-day deployment across both hospitals was carefully scheduled and our team provided on-site technical support throughout the initial deployment to ensure smooth operation and immediate resolution of any technical issues.

The VR hardware was selected and configured for medical facility requirements, including easy sanitisation between users and compatibility with the medical equipment that children might be using.

The technical implementation included staff training for Starlight Express team members and volunteers across both hospital sites. This training covered not only the technical operation of the VR equipment but also best practices for supporting children during their virtual experience, recognising signs of discomfort, and maximising benefits.

Ongoing

The response from patients, families, healthcare staff and Starlight volunteers has been positive.

Mobiddiction aims to continue on our collaborative journey with Starlight Children’s Foundation to refine and expand the RocketCrew experience based on user feedback and observations. This ongoing partnership ensures that the VR experience evolves to meet the changing needs of young patients and incorporates advances in both VR technology and bespoke health care virtual reality experiences.

Because RocketCrew is built on PatientVR, further experiences can be added beyond it.

The collaborative model established with Starlight, hospital staff, and volunteers serves as a template for future therapeutic VR initiatives. This multi-stakeholder approach ensures that technology solutions are grounded in real clinical needs and supported by the teams who work directly with young patients and their families.

RocketCrew is what we want technology to do: make a real difference to people at a hard time. We are proud to have built it with Starlight, and we want to bring it to more children and hospitals across Australia.