Augmented Reality App
Beary's Arctic Adventure
A playful educational experience exploring the frozen home of Beary the Polar Bear.
The Story
"Beary's Arctic Adventure" is an augmented reality app that encourages children ages 6-8 to explore three interactive portals while providing a playful educational experience.
Utilizing a combination of markerless and marker-based AR, the app transforms the user's immediate environment into an arctic landscape, inviting them to learn about nature through music, trivia, and exploration.
Project Goals & Audience
Objective
Provide children with a playful educational experience featuring polar bears in the Arctic.
Motivation
Encourage kids' interest in nature and create opportunities to promote conversation about the environment.
Target Users
Children ages 6-8. (May also appeal to slightly older children, with parent participation encouraged).
AR Features & Interactions
The application was built using Unity and features a combination of markerless and marker-based AR incorporating audio triggered by user interactions.
Core Features
- Basic AR: Arctic environment appears after planar detection and placement.
- Dynamic Content: Falling stars, color flashing instruments, and animated characters.
- Context: An introduction to learning science, developing motor skills, and encouraging artistic exploration.
User Interactions
- Scanning terrain to place the main game board.
- Operating portal icons with controllers.
- Physically moving throughout portal environments to play mini-games.
- Tapping xylophone icicles and percussion ice shapes.
- Answering trivia questions by pressing virtual buttons.
- Catching floating stars with controllers.
The Experience: Logic Path
The app guides users through a structured logic path, from initial menu setup to specific activity portals.
Arctic scene placement and Controller selection (Physical or Virtual).
Xylophone icicles and percussion ice shapes.
Polar Bear Trivia (Yes/No questions) and Star Catching activity.
Design Implementation
As hinted at the start, the project underwent significant evolution driven by technical challenges, time constraints, and iterative thinking. Initially, the game was intended to have two portals: a gameplay portal with challenges and a second portal with tools to assist the user.
The design ultimately shifted to accommodate a more condensed play area for a safer gaming experience (slowing down the pace of interactivity) and focused on generalized education rather than a strict focus on global warming.
Where We Landed on the Games
The Arctic Music Portal
Initially, the setup was simple with a single row of icicle xylophones. We landed on two rows to provide more interactivity and interest. To add more fun, we included two sets of icy-shaped percussions on either side. Additionally, color response was added for active visual feedback.
The Trivia Portal
This game evolved from a moving puzzle that reunited Mom and Beary. However, the movement seemed distracting from the main educational component. To bring the focus back to polar bear facts, the design shifted to rewarding users by building a scene with Mom and Beary as a reinforcement of their knowledge.
Catching Stars
This game remained relatively the same from its inception. While simple in concept, it presented challenges, primarily with populating the stars in the correct spot each time the portal was triggered.
Storyboard Interactions
Storyboard Interactions
Design Challenges
"A glimpse into the madness."
The development process was not without its hurdles. From Vuforia updates breaking scripts to Unity crashes, here is a look at the issues we encountered and resolved:
Testing & Iteration
- Started testing markerless portals — found to be cumbersome and unrealistic for users.
- Tested AR rendering on the floor — obscured the path and didn't look grounded.
- Decided to condense the play area for safety in physical spaces.
- Tested both marker-based and markerless environments to find the most stable experience.
- Changed prototype image target to a custom target featuring Beary.
- Changed snowflake portal icons into Beary and friends icons.
Technical Hurdles
- Breaking Unity and restarting computers 3+ times.
- Realizing Vuforia needed an update... breaking several scripts.
- Trivia portal moving when answering questions / Raycasting affected by UI buttons.
- Stars failing to instantiate in the correct location.
- Musical icicles changing colors too late or not at all.
- Audio sync issues between questions and feedback.
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg! (pun intended)
Conclusion
"Beary's Arctic Adventure" successfully blends interactive gaming with educational content. Despite the technical hurdles of working with AR in Unity, the team delivered a cohesive experience that engages children with the Arctic environment.
The project highlights the importance of iterative design—adapting features like the trivia portal and music room to better serve the user experience—and the resilience required to overcome the unique challenges of augmented reality development.