A team of special agents have had an accident in cyberspace and their spacecraft has broken in two. Now, two rescue teams are uploaded in each their half of the craft and must cooperate in Cyberspace to recover the wreckage and the surviving agents.

The scenario "SOS from Cyberspace 1.0" was created by the Danish Virtualive project. And it will take place on the 5 and 6 November 2005 in two spacecraft settings created in two geographically distant places in Denmark. Here, students aged 13-16 from two different Danish schools will work together in cyberspace across physical borders to achieve the common goal of fixing the spacecraft.

In the settings there are no computer screens. The interface is the set design – the two halves of the spacecraft - that are equipped with sensors and webcams and that generate the interaction with the required computers that are connected via the internet.

Project manager Signe Klejs said:

"The aim is to create a play environment in which the children’s social awareness on the internet is developed and strengthened.

We think that social relations on the internet lack a degree of proximity. With the Virtualive project we therefore remove the interface and the participants cooperate with each other in a room that is physical and virtual at the same time and not limited by geographical borders."

The participating children will all be able to video chat with each other at the same time. They look out of their half of the spacecraft to a 5 x 3.5 metre projection of a magical cyberspace. And each of them is given a particular role in the game. This will provide them with a sense of social responsibility in their interaction on the internet.

"We plant an image of the person on the other side of the screen on the participants' retina in the hope that they will bring this image with them the next time they chat on the internet," Signe Klejs says.

"SOS from Cyberspace 1.0" is a test scenario with 64 participants. The goal is to acquire knowledge in order to develop similar scenarios. One idea is to create a Virtualive scenario on wheels that could visit schools all over Denmark.