James “Jim” Farmer first came to work at NASA by way of a series of internships with the NASA DEVELOP National Program, while concurrently pursuing his Bachelor of Science degree from Christopher Newport University. As a participant of DEVELOP, Jim notably worked on, and eventually led, a virtual reality project known as the HIVE (Highly-Portable Immersive Virtual Environment) as well as its off-shoot augmented reality mobile app: HIVE Lens. Jim and his team’s efforts were highlighted by Microsoft’s Channel 9 Developer Portal for the HIVE’s incorporation of Microsoft’s Kinect hardware as a user interface. In addition to his team responsibilities, Jim was also responsible for creation, curation and administration of DEVELOP’s public and private websites in direct coordination with the chief DEVELOP staff. He also performed system administrative tasks for DEVELOP’s 13 national nodes.
At this same time, Jim was also acting as a mentor to students at Menchville High School competing in the“For Inspiration and Recognition of Science & Technology” (F.I.R.S.T.) Robotics Competition (FRC). Jim had participated in this contest himself during his time at Mathews High School, where he served as team captain. His mentored students at Menchville received an FRC award for web design excellence. Jim credits F.I.R.S.T. for turning him onto NASA.
Come 2013, Jim completed his bachelor’s degree and left NASA DEVELOP only to quickly transition to work for SAGE III on ISS. For SAGE, Jim has since written a plethora of software for the instrument, provided system administration, and, chiefly created SAGE III’s Mission Operations Website: an interactive web based window into SAGE’s ~7000 engineering parameters.
Outside of work Jim spends his time with his high-school sweetheart, now wife, and his young son. He collects vintage video game hardware as a hobby and makes a point to visit Walt Disney World with his family as often as he can.
