Ella Xing, a junior at The Bishop’s School in La Jolla, has been through her fair share of emergency drills. But from her perspective, the simulations are too rigid and easily dismissed by her peers.
“They have fire drills, earthquake drills, all these kinds of drills,” Ella said. “But what happens in these drills is that no one really pays attention and people don’t think of it as a big deal.
“Drills are just way too kind of rhythmic, I guess. … They don’t really teach kids how to actually react, understand or assess a situation.”
To combat that, Ella created a virtual reality game to simulate different scenarios that students may face in an emergency. And it led to her winning first place in the senior division for computer science and system software in her debut at the Greater San Diego Science & Engineering Fair in March at Balboa Park.
Rather than demonstrating emergency situations in a controlled, one-size-fits-all drill, Ella’s invention uses artificial intelligence technology to create an interactive experience designed to better prepare students for the unpredictability of fires, floods and active shooter situations.
The 5.2 magnitude earthquake centered northeast of San Diego on April 14 was an “eye-opening” moment for Ella and reinforced her view of a need for better preparation. A week before the quake, The Bishop’s School held a drill that went much smoother than the real event, she said.
“The actual day of the earthquake, it was completely chaotic,” Ella said. “Students were running in the wrong direction. Some people didn’t feel the earthquake and didn’t want to evacuate, and people were being loud on the quad, not knowing what’s going on.”
She said she hopes to continue working on her emergency simulations and to help enhance drills at schools.
Bishop’s Head of School Ron Kim said he’s “proud of our students for how they recognize societal problems and concerns and apply their creativity and intellect to solutions that make the world a better place.”
Asked to respond to Ella’s comments about emergency drills, Kim said “our emergency response team coordinates drills with specific scenarios to help our community visualize and practice a variety of situations and responses throughout the school year.”
“The recent earthquake is a prime example of how real situations test us in ways that simulated drills do not fully replicate,” he said. “There are many logistics in managing the safety of our community, the continuity of their day and communicating clearly. On that Monday, we quickly communicated, gathered, ed for all students and adults, assessed the safety of the campus and modified the remainder of the morning’s schedule in order to return to class safely and efficiently.”
Ella’s game uses a pair of platforms, Unity and Visual Studio Code. She used the computer language C# to code the project.
The virtual reality places students in simulations of “realistic, high-stress environments.” Fire and flood scenarios task students with identifying the safest, most efficient evacuation routes. Active shooter simulations push students to make quick decisions to avert danger.
Ella feels the active shooter scenarios are particularly important.
“My friends and I have agreed that when it comes to going to a classroom or a new school environment, the first thing we look for and locate are the exit signs in a room so in case something happens, we know exactly where to go,” she said.
Ella was first drawn to game development at Summer@Brown, a summer camp offered by Brown University, where she designed a board game based on evacuations. From there, she translated the concept to a virtual format and, eventually, virtual reality.
Over the past year, she spent four to five hours a week working on the project. She said she didn’t expect to win an award at the science fair, as she was competing against many returning contestants.
“I know a lot of my friends and peers, in my grade especially, have done science fairs for multiple years at this point,” Ella said. “This year was my first year actually, so getting the full science fair experience was genuinely something new.”
Ella’s mother, Peilin Fu, said her daughter’s affinity for science and innovation has been evident most of her life.
“I think it started when she was little,” Fu said. “I when she was 7 years old and I asked her what kind of birthday gift she wanted. And she asked for a microscope.”
Since then, Fu said, Ella has shown a keen interest in science, attending summer camps and participating in extracurricular activities. In recent years, she noticed Ella taking a special interest in AI technology and creating tools to help students.
“I’m very pleased to see that she observed these things and decided to help make a change,” Fu said. “I her in any way that I could and her to look for the resources she needs.”
On an instructor’s recommendation, Ella plans to create a customizable format that would enable game s to modify rooms, adjust furniture locations and more. Currently, the map is a one-to-one scale model of Bishop’s.
Ella’s faculty adviser, Marcus Jaiclin, said the scaling part is difficult and that “we’re more in a sort of proof of concept phase.”
However, Jaiclin said, “if somebody was able to design their environment in this space, this is a way you could simulate an emergency drill.”
Ella also plans to dive further into AI, partly through a course she is taking called Honors Artificial Intelligence and Computer Vision. ♦
