This guy built a VR time machine from a year's worth of Snapchat Spectacles footage

During the coronavirus lockdowns, I sure would love to have a time machine so I can travel back to all those concerts I attended and places I visited in 2019. Wouldn’t you? Well, Lucas Rizzotto did it. Kind of.

This San Francisco-based inventor wore Snapchat spectacles for an entire year, filming everything that was happening to him. He ended up using this footage to create a VR “time machine” that lets him relive any experience from 2019 that he wants. He shared his journey in a video, and it’s the best video you’ll see today. Or dare I say even this year.

Lucas bought a pair of Spectacles because, well, they look much less dorky than a face camera. He had no idea how many hard drives he would need to store the footage, and he ended up buying dozens of them. As you can imagine, it was quite a challenge to build the whole thing. And I’m impressed just how many different skills he had to use to do it: video and photo editing, animation, design, coding.

I believe you’ll recognize the control panel of Lucas’ time machine. Back to the Future, anyone? But he was inspired by a few more movies and even a video game. So, his “portal” is a combination of Harry Potter, Minority Report, and Portal. I need to warn you that there is also a bit of an animated butt and some strong language in the video, but it’s all for the sake of humor.

Although the video is packed with great humor and sarcasm, Lucas’ conclusions and realizations really made me think and even got me emotional. He admits that reliving his life was very emotional and way more immersive than he thought it was gonna be. The experience made him realize how much of his life he’d forgotten until he saw it again. And he found a new appreciation for himself as a person while watching what he made and reliving his life in a way.

While the “time machine project” started before the pandemic, Lucas made the video itself as a quarantine project because he was bored. And I freakin’ loved it! You can see the shorter version of the video below, but I strongly suggest that you watch the entire 28 minutes on YouTube, it’s definitely worth it. Also, make sure to subscribe to his channel support him on Patreon.