Reid Daniels

Augmented Reality Habitat Explorer

The AR Habitat Explorer was a prototype created in Unity using AR Foundation to create a scientific AR experience for students K-12, most specifically for those that are on the spectrum. Our clients approached our professor and offered to finance one of the prototypes created from multiple groups in our cohort. Each group was presented a topic and crafted a prototype based off what they got. My group got biomes, so we focused specifically on the Desert. The idea was to have an animal, the camel, walk the student through the vocabulary of the desert to help them better understand elements by visually seeing what they were being taught by actions performed by the camel, or areas walked through.

Task

This project was brought to us by our Professor in our second semester of Junior year. He was contacted by a group of researchers at Boise State University who wanted to get a prototype Augmented Reality experience to teach students K-12 a science lesson. Their target audience, specifically students on the spectrum who needed a lesson capable to teach the necessary information without needing an assistant to walk them through it.

Journey

This task was difficult to design from the very start. First off, none of my team had ever developed for mobile before this project, so we had to learn everything from the ground up. On top of that, we had to communicate with clients for the first time about an idea that was foreign to many of us, so it was our first real glimpse into putting ourselves into the shoes of the user. With all that said, we still had to take our mainly game making ideas and make an experience out of it. So not only was this a new experience for many of us, it was also a very good learning experience for people who have never worked alongside clients before. We learned many skills, such as making sure our communication of what they want and understanding how that applies to our design, to present our ideas in a way the clients can easily understand, and designing for a platform that is all about accessablity which was opposite of what he had done until this point in time. All this combined created a great atmosphere of learning and allowed us all to grow in areas we had no experience in before.

Roles

Lead Developer:

Worked with client to create a science based AR experience fitted for K-12, specifically children on the spectrum.

Brainstormed ideas with clients as well as discussed changes and implementations to make sure the team and client were on the same page.

AR developer, created every AR based within the application, from placement of the terrain, to animation play through UI elements onto the AR terrain.

Created base UI element layout as well as button control and screens seen, placing art from our artist.

Implemented animation through coding for the camel as well as control of animation with UI

Habitat Explorer Prototype Final Demo May 2021

Photo Gallery

The first lesson is about the camel traversing the Desert, with audio playing and text appearing on screen for the users pleasure.

The second lesson is about the camel needing help drinking. The side bar allows the user to get the water for the camel, ensuring the user understands what the needs are.

The vocab page allows the user to view words previously learned, to remind or help on questions to ensure the lessons are learned.