A FORMER Plymouth student has designed a chair that allows gamers to control their movement within virtual reality from the comfort of their seat.
The VRGO chair, designed by Joe Ryan, redefines virtual reality by allowing users to control their movement within games by tilting their body in the direction they want their character to travel.
The chair connects to a smartphone via bluetooth and the phone is then placed inside a headset which holds the phone in front of the user's eyes.
To move around within the game, all the user has to do is sit on the chair and tilt their body in different directions.
Gamers can also spin around on the chair to see their character do the same and the chair can be connected to a PC.
Mr Ryan, a former Eggbuckland Community College student now living in Bristol, managed to meet his goal of raising £20,000 through an online Kickstarter campaign and now plans to produce a hand-made batch of 100 VRGO chairs in spring next year.
He said: "I felt that it was a good idea so, although it was a bit of a gamble, I felt quite confident.
"It's really exciting and it has been an amazing adventure that has taken me all around the world."
Mr Ryan studied a bachelors degree in illustration and a masters degree in games design before going on to design games for a mobile phone company.
During his time at the company, he also studied a two-year course in furniture making and it was at this point that he was inspired to create the VRGO chair.
He said: "I came up with the idea of a self-righting posture chair that acts like an exercise ball and that was when I had my flash of inspiration.
"I used my knowledge of mobile phone gaming with this new chair that I designed and created the VRGO chair before making the first prototype out of wood."
A number of the chairs have already been pre-ordered by people all over the world through the Kickstarter campaign.
The first batch of VRGO chairs are expected to be ready in April next year while the second batch will be ready in May.