POL: Race Through Sandpit in Audi VR Experience

The best way to demonstrate a car’s assets is by creating a fun and immersive VR installation, according to Norwegian agency POL.

With a little production help from VR masters, MediaMonks, the experience allows users to tap into a child’s imagination and literally race in real-time through a giant-sized sandpit in the new Audi Q5.

Obviously, this would be great fun if it were real but the monks do a good job to keep adrenaline high in the VR Sandbox 2.0 experience.

Users can strap themselves into a stationary go-kart and transport themselves into the real car once they put on a VR headset.

Then their childlike racing fantasies can fully begin.

Boasting a custom-built track, the experience unfolds to reveal huge sandcastles that give the impression that the driver is speeding around corners, darting through tunnels and dodging buckets and spades. The environment and direction of the car will reflect the driver’s peddle movements and wheel steering, to make the experience feel as authentic as possible. Even the sound of the engine roaring is a real clip from the Audi Q5.

“To create a VR experience that is totally believable, it’s important that the driving environment also feels real,” says MediaMonks’ CD Tom Eriksen. “Not only the visual part but also the feel of the steering wheel and its feedback when you hit the sand.”

Take a look behind-the-scenes below:

And the best bit? Audi’s marketing manager Tommy Jensen admits, “[It’s] a state-of-the-art toy for kids and adults.” Need we say anymore...?