AR Final Project — “A Beary Arctic Adventure”
By Emilie Duran, Liz Estefan and Noel Nuñez
THE ABOUT
This final project was assigned in our university level Augmented Reality class. We were given approximately 2+ weeks to complete the task. General topics were provided, and our team of three (Emilie, Liz and Noel) chose to focus on an educational game.
“A Beary Arctic Adventure” is an AR App for children ages 6–8 providing playful educational activities in an Arctic themed world featuring Beary the Polar Bear to encourage interest in nature and the environment.
The goal of the game in a roundabout way is to bring attention to nature and the environment by way of having fun! Through interactive gameplay providing different educational experiences, the hope is it will open a window (or “portal”) for curiosity and conversation.
To reiterate:
Objective
- Provide children with a playful educational experience featuring polar bears in the Arctic.
Motivation
- Encourage kids’ interest in nature and create opportunity to promote conversation about the environment.
Target Users
- Children ages 6–8. May appeal to slightly older children. (Parents may participate).
DESIGN
Storyboard
While some initial details shifted through the process after some technical testing and much mulling over, the storyboard created early on remains close to the final product.
Current Logic Path
The app combines markerless and marker-based AR with UI elements for user interaction directly on a handheld device.
- Opening and ending menus: Title, introduction, instructions and
thank you screens.
- Main game board: Arctic scene appears with 3 interactive icons for entrance to the portal activities.
- Physical or virtual controller: The player can use either to interact with the virtual worlds.
- Portal 1 — Arctic Music Room: Xylophone icicles and percussion ice shapes (user plays the instruments with the markerless or marker-based controller).
- Portal 2 — Polar Bear Trivia: Through yes/no questions and correctly answering them, the user builds a scene of Beary and Mom on the ice.
- Portal 3 — Catching Stars: Player uses either marker to catch stars floating in the portal.
AR FEATURES
Main features include a combination of markerless and marker-based AR incorporating audio triggered by user interaction with the app. Additionally the design includes:
Basic
- Arctic environment appears after planar detection and placement.
Dynamic Content
- Falling stars, color flashing instruments.
Context
- An educational experience. Introduction to learning science, developing motor skills, and encouraging artistic exploration and creativity.
Interactions Include
- Pressing button to begin experience.
- Scanning terrain to place the main game board.
- Operating portal icons with controllers.
- Physically moving throughout portal environments to play mini games.
- Tapping the xylophone icicles and percussion ice shapes to produce music.
- Reading and listening to trivia questions and feedback.
- Answering trivia questions by pressing buttons.
- Catching stars with controllers.
MORE ON DESIGN
Implementation
As I hinted at the start, there was some evolution. Technical challenges, time constraints, and a lot of thinking, and then some more thinking (and even more thinking) molded this evolution. Initially the game was intended to have two portals, the game play portal with challenges and activities and a second portal with tools to assist the user.
The design changed to accommodate a more condensed play area, safer gaming experience (slowed down the pace of interactivity), and generalized education as opposed to game play more strictly focused on global warming which as a team we discussed early on.
Where We landed on the Games
The Arctic Music Portal: Initially the set up was going to be more simple, with a single rowed icicle xylophone, okay, maybe two. So we landed on two to provide more interactivity and interest. Well, why not add some more fun? So two sets of icy shaped percussions on either side of the xylophone were added. You can never have too many instruments and sounds (though parents may beg to differ). Additionally, color response was added for active recognition.
The Trivia Portal: This game went from having a moving puzzle that reunites mom and Beary, but the movement seemed distracting from the main educational component. So to bring it back to the polar bear facts the kids are intended to learn, the design shifted to rewarding users with building a scene with mom and Beary as a reward to reinforce their knowledge.
Catching Stars: This game remained relatively the same from its inception. As simple as it may seem, it had its challenges, mostly with populating the stars in the correct spot each time the portal was triggered.
Which leads us to the issues with encountered.
Issues, Oh So Many Issues…
- Started testing markless portals — cumbersome and unrealistic (gameplay not feasible, complicated for user).
- Tested AR rendering on the floor — obscured the path, looked like it was floating above the floor, not effective use of AR.
- Decided to condense the play area for safety, too large in physical spaces.
- Tested both marker-based and markerless environments for the most stable gameplay experience.
- Changed prototype image target to custom image target featuring Beary the Polar Bear and friends.
- Changed snowflake portal icons into Beary and friends portal icons.
And then there was more!…
- Breaking Unity and restarting computers 3+ times
- Changing penguin 3D models to seals
- Realizing Vuforia needed an update 3 hours later…
- Breaking several scripts… a lot
- Trivia portal moving when answering questions / Raycasting affected by UI buttons
- Stars would not instantiate in the correct location
- The project would successfully build but the app would not appear on the device
- Moving puzzle with Trivia, but incorrect positioning and translation
- Preventing overlap with question and feedback audio
- Musical icicles would change colors too late, not change back to gray, or would not change at all
- A few of the musical notes were too high-pitched
- Unity changed the pitch of some audio clips upon importing
- Audio wasn’t syncing with the questions and feedback
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg! (pun intended)
DEMO VIDEO
Take a look.
LET’S WRAP THIS UP
Is this good AR? Well, we think so and hope you do too. (Be kind, keep in mind we had about two weeks for the whole project!) Miracles do happen. Phew!
Purposeful
- Educational and interactive AR app.
Clear Target Audience
- Young children 6–8, but may be fun for older kids.
Engaging
- Features three interactive games, each with a different educational/developmental focus.
Good UI
- Cheerful and youthful design with accessibility features: voiceovers and blue/yellow buttons (as opposed to red/green) to accommodate
for colorblindness.
Good UX
- Easy to get around for overall enjoyable experience.
If you made it this far…
Thank you for sticking with us. We hope you enjoyed the read!
Best ~ Emilie, Liz & Noel
