Virtual reality is newest way to experience Franklin Institute

PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) -- Be prepared to step into another world next time you enter the Franklin Institute.

The museum just unveiled its latest technology that will virtually transport you just about anywhere imaginable.

While it may look like - and sound like - the ocean floor, you're actually standing in the Franklin Institute's latest piece of virtual reality called the Holodeck.

You can even find the VR experience coupled with top of the line headsets in other exhibits like Your Brain, The Giant Heart and Space Command.

"It makes you feel like you're there. So you're transported to Mars, or you're transported to the space station or open heart surgery, you feel like you're part of the activity that's happening and we know that helps you learn more," Franklin Institute President and CEO Larry Dubinksi said.

Temple University student Artemid Leskaj was one of the first to try the VR and joked it's better than a text book.

"You're actually in the virtual reality," Leskaj said.

Several hundred people lined up to get a first glimpse of the exhibits that also included cardiac arrest scenarios to one with dinosaurs.

"It's like a full emersion. You have the speakers on your ears, it was just like a whole shabam," Jackson Simon of Yeardley, Pa. said.

"Very realistic, I was able to move around, 360 degrees up, down, graphics everywhere and the dinosaur came and it moved overheard and I got to see it walk away and I was actually relieved. It felt very real," Addie Nesbitt of Mt. Airy said.

"I did the one where you over a castle and that one is a bow and arrow and you actually feel the vibration of the bow pull back, you feel like you are holding something," Greg Palmer of Exton, Pa. said.

The museum even launched a new app to enhance the experience that seems to already be winning with visitors.

"I've only done one thing and it's already worth it," Palmer said.

The museum says this is just the beginning, as technology changes so too will they.

Who knows? Augmented reality -- like Pokemon Go - could be the Franklin Institute's next stop.