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In 2016, festivalgoers experienced a simulated trip to Mars from inside a real school bus—without wearing VR headsets. Custom transparent displays replaced the view through the bus windows with a Martian landscape, while GPS and motion sensors helped the scene respond to the vehicle’s real movement.
What was the Field Trip to Mars?
Field Trip to Mars was a custom, shared virtual-reality installation created by Framestore with Lockheed Martin and creative agency McCann. It launched at the 2016 U.S.A. Science and Engineering Festival in Washington, D.C., as part of Lockheed Martin’s Generation Beyond initiative. The experience was designed to introduce young festival attendees to a simulated journey across Mars.
The bus did not travel to Mars, and this was not a consumer ride that people could buy. Instead, the stationary experience took place in a real bus fitted with a custom visual and sensor system. Framestore describes it as the first headset-free group virtual-reality vehicle experience. Framestore VR Studio’s project description and Framestore’s project page describe the installation and its collaborators.
How did the bus create the illusion of Mars?
Transparent displays turned the windows into shared screens
Passengers looked out through custom transparent displays fitted to the bus windows. At first, they could see the real surroundings; the displays then presented a simulated Martian landscape. Because the scene was visible through the windows, everyone on board shared the same view without individual headsets or goggles.
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Unreal Engine rendered a Mars landscape aligned with the route
Framestore built the virtual Mars environment in Unreal Engine and mapped it against the configuration of Washington, D.C.’s real streets. The landscape included geological features and objects positioned along the route. As the bus moved, GPS and motion-sensor data—including information from an accelerometer—fed the vehicle’s movement into the simulation, helping the Martian scene shift in sync with the ride. Unreal Engine’s October 14, 2016 developer account gives more technical context.
The core idea was to combine actual vehicle movement with a visual world shared across the bus, rather than isolate each rider inside a headset. Framestore’s accounts describe custom displays and vehicle instrumentation; they do not identify an off-the-shelf kit that readers can purchase to reproduce the installation.
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What did riders experience?
The simulated landscape was only part of the effect. In an August 25, 2016 report, HotHardware quoted Framestore Head of Creative Technology Alexander Rea describing the role of sound: “Without hearing that sandstorm surrounding you, feeling it in the subwoofers, feeling it coming from left to right, it would not be a good experience.” The account suggests that directional audio and subwoofers helped make the imagined environment feel more enveloping. HotHardware’s report also quoted Framestore senior developer Gary Marshall on his initial reaction to the project: “When I first heard about the project, my reaction was, ‘This is absolutely nuts’. But it was so cool, that I wanted to be on it from the start.”
How many people took the trip?
Framestore VR Studio’s currently available, undated project page reports that more than 2,500 festival attendees took the trip and that some festivalgoers waited as long as an hour and a half to try it. The studio also reports more than 2.5 million video views and more than 120 million impressions for the project. These are Framestore’s reported project metrics, not independently verified attendance or reach figures. The studio’s project page provides the figures.
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Is the Mars bus still open to visitors?
The available project accounts establish the 2016 festival launch and describe how the installation worked, but they do not establish whether the original bus is still operating, open to visitors, or available for booking. Treat Field Trip to Mars as a notable custom installation from that event, not as a currently available attraction.
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