Dr Matt Cabanag (He/him)

I am an international award winning creative technologist, looking to make a splash in the world. As of 2026 (April), I completed my PhD in Human-Autonomy Teaming at the MARCS Institute for Brain Behaviour and Development in Western Sydney University (Westmead). While pursuing the PhD, I became an Education Focused, Associate Lecturer at UNSW Art & Design (Paddington), where I currently continue to serve on a permanent/part-time basis (0.5 FTE). I teach into the Master of Simulation and Immersive Technologies (MSIT), primarily teaching AR/VR design and development, mainly using the Meta Quest 3, Unity3D, and OpenXR standards.

In 2018, my team was awarded “Best Mission Design” for NASA’s global Space Apps Challenge, beating thousands of other entries from around the world. In 2022, my team represented Australia in the annual International APEC App Challenge, and got 2nd place. In 2014, I was the Eric Dybsand Memorial - AI Scholar for the International Game Developers Association (one awarded each year, globally).

I’ve spent about two decades in the university sector, acting in academic and professional roles at Macquarie Uni and UNSW. In 2019, I was part of a team of 3 to be awarded “Vice Chancellor’s Award for Learning Innovation” at Macquarie Uni. As for industry experience, I was briefly the AR/VR Tech Lead at DXC Technology (2018-19).

I have a keen interest in artistic works, having contributed to public interactive installations for the Chatswood Biennale (2017, 2019), Vivid (2018, 2021 (COVID cancelled)), and Enlighten Canberra (2022).

Insta: [@mattavc]

Socials

[LinkedIn]

Talks

11:00AM | EZPZ interaction toolkit - What is it? | Room B

EZPZ Interaction Toolkit can get you building genuine, independently usable, interactive prototypes without needing to write code. All you need to do is drag and drop! Built on top of Unity 3D, it is a collection of scripts and prefabricated objects that you can mix and match to suit your purposes.
Matt will go into detail on what this tool is and how to use it.

[EZPZ Interaction Toolkit GitHub]

3:00PM | Matt's 3 VR Game Talk - extended sprint session | Room B

This will be 3 lightning talks stacked end-to-end. The first topic will be about how I teach vector arithmetic using Virtual Reality. The second topic will be how I get non-programming design students to make VR games. The third topic will be a lightning run through my TaiChi spellcasting game that has nothing to do with uni work!

Topic 1
If you can use Photoshop, you can make VR experiences. That is the promise this toolkit makes to non-technical design students who need to create genuine, independently usable, VR artefacts. In most design schools, programming skills are not usually a prerequisite. However, even as design practice increasingly incorporates interactive digital technologies, traditional design schools are still hesitant to provide programming curricula. In practice, design students needing to incorporate digital technologies in their work are left to their own devices, learning the required technical skills alone, with minimal support. This toolkit provides affordances for drag-and-drop creation, promising that it only needs the same the technical skills required for Adobe Photoshop or Premiere. Additionally, as it is built on top of Unity 3D, students using the toolkit automatically gain experience in an industry standard game engine, which makes them all the more industry ready. This talk aims to spread the word about experiences around using the toolkit for teaching purposes, and to also gather feedback from other educators who may be in a similar situation.

Topic 2
Traditionally, linear algebra has been taught using 2D representations of fundamentally 3D concepts. We present a visualisation of vector arithmetic in virtual reality with full hand presence and lateral motion, demonstrating how this new technology can be used to enhance student engagement and understanding. We detail sufficiently powerful affordances to convey ideas such as compound operations, yet simple enough to be digestible by average undergraduate students in a 1st year university mathematics course. This presentation aims to catalyse discussion and ideas around the use of immersive technologies for education in more abstract disciplines such as mathematics.

Topic 3
I wanted to talk a bit about how I did the magic system. What I did to optimise the magic particles. The physics behind them and how I made it not slow down on a VR headset. Also want to talk a bit about the telekinesis system and how I thought about implementing "the force" in a VR game.