It’s often said that walking into a museum is like going back in time. All of those artefacts, lovingly curated and displayed create a vivid sense of history for visitors, or at least, that’s the hope. But, wouldn’t it be great if you could actually experience these objects and artefacts in situ? Barring access to a time-machine, this is nigh on impossible but that hasn’t stopped the team in the Samsung Digital Discovery Centre (SDDC) at the British Museum from having a go.

The Samsung Digital Learning Managers from the Schools and Young Audiences Team have been working with Dr Neil Wilkin, Curator of the European Bronze Age collection at the British Museum. They employed the skills of Soluis Heritage who specialise in presenting heritage architecture through CGI visuals and animation (you might have seen them at the M+H Show earlier this year).

Together they have created a virtual Bronze Age-style round house, complete with burning fire, authentic atmospheric sounds and incorporated 3D scanned representations of British Museum objects from that period including a Sussex Loop, and a ceremonial Beaune dirk.

Visitors to a virtual reality weekend held in the great Court of The British Museum on 8 and 9 August were able to explore the round house and objects using Samsung Gear VR headsets, as well as on Samsung tablets and via an immersive dome.

I worked as a facilitator over the weekend – we expected it to be a busy weekend, and we were right with more than 1,200 people took part in the activities during one of the hottest weekends of the year.

The main draw was the Gear VR headsets. Like something out of the early ‘90s visions of the future, the VR Helmet design gave visitors the freedom to explore the Bronze Age roundhouse and discover a bit more about the objects at their own pace.