Lockheed Martin – Field Trip to Mars

2016 Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity – Most Awarded Campaign (19 Cannes Lions)

Field Trip to Mars was the first-ever group VR experience, and it came disguised as a yellow school bus.

We transformed a standard school bus into an immersive vehicle capable of transporting a group of students to the surface of the Red Planet. Using transparent 4K screens as windows, we synced a fully rendered Martian landscape to the real-world route of the bus through Washington, D.C., so that every bump in the road, every turn, and every stop seamlessly mirrored the sensation of driving on Mars.

The Backstory

Lockheed Martin was a major sponsor of the 2016 Science and Engineering Festival in Washington, D.C. We used the moment to launch Generation Beyond, a broader STEM initiative aimed at inspiring the scientists and explorers of tomorrow.

To make the experience unforgettable, we invited a group of middle school students to what they thought was a conventional field trip to the convention center, where Lockheed Martin CEO Marillyn Hewson would deliver the keynote. But as the bus began to roll, we flipped the switch and the streets of D.C. transformed into a photo real Martian landscape.

How We Made It Work

To bring the idea to life, we partnered with Framestore, the Academy Award-winning VFX studio behind Gravity and The Martian. They built a 200-square-mile Mars “worldspace” mapped over the real streets of D.C., complete with geological formations, craters, and terrain matched to the bus route.

Using Unreal Engine, Framestore engineered a custom system that translated live GPS, accelerometer, and steering data from the real bus into the virtual Mars environment. The result: the bus itself became the VR headset.

Cultural Impact

After its debut at the Science & Engineering Festival, the Mars Bus toured schools across the country for six months, culminating with an appearance at Super Bowl LI in Houston. In 2018, it was permanently donated to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, where it continues to inspire future explorers..