Inspiration: Miami Hack Week has over 100K in bounties and the Niantics have stolen a bounty. Help recover the bounty so the Bounty can be given out to the MHW Hackers. The Niantic's(Niantic Staff) has come and someone has stolen the Dropverse bounty. It is up to you to recover stolen items and solve the case by completing the various mysteries in the house. My motivation was to build out location based experiences that Hackers at Miami Hack Week could experience when they get stressed from coding and trying to meet the deadlines. This is the reason I built an experience at both the Niantic AR Loft where I was and also at the Miami Hack Week Headquarters. Unfortunately, I submitted the app to TestFlight and I am awaiting the Public link. I had printed out QR codes to both TestFlight and the AR Detective app. My other motivation was to get people active and moving to have to walk to different locations versus staying seated and coding all day throughout the Hack week.
What it does: Using TestFlight, you can download AR Detective and you can experience a Location Based Augmented Reality scavenger hunt where you have to visit each Wayspot. The app shows you on the map where to go at either the Niantic AR Loft or the MHW Headquarters. Once you reach that location you have a mini experience to unlock a clue or find a stolen item. There are(12 total different AR interactive experiences) 6 different experiences at each house including putting out the fire on the stove or the Miami Hack Week sign on the 8th floor of Headquarters.
How we built it: We used Unity and Niantic Lightship VPS, Maps, to create this experience.
Challenges we ran into: A challenge I ran into was I had to go scan all the Wayspots my self to localize using Niantic VPS. Additionally, trying to build 2 different physical locations was challenging because I didn't want you to just collect items, I wanted to have interactive location based AR experiences for users. I had to create 6 different interactive experiences for the clues and recovery of the stolen bounty for both the Niantic AR Loft and also the Miami Hack Week Headquarters. This involved me visiting both locations and scouting out locations that made sense. When I identified the locations, I had to build a story around each location that made sense in the real world. For example, the stove in the kitchen is on fire and you have to grab the AR fire extinguisher to put out the fire. Additionally, after coming up with the story I had to scan these locations and create them as Niantic Wayspots before I could go back and test the mini interactive experiences within centimeter accuracy.
Accomplishments that we're proud of: I am proud to challenge myself and build out 2 real world location based AR experiences with 12 interactive experiences. I hoped to get this up for actual hackers to experience while at Miami Hack Week but the challenge of 2 houses miles apart from each other was bigger than I expected to complete it early enough to get it approved for TestFlight. I know I could have built one experience at my Niantic AR house and got up it to TestFlight, but I really wanted to push myself to give these fun experiences to all hackers by providing an moving AR experience for them at the Miami Hack Weekend Headquarters as well.
What we learned: I learned how to create a one room multiple way spot experiences were users have to visit many locations and also do interactions to make the interaction better. Also I learned how to create unique location based mini games at each Niantic Wayspot.
What's next for AR Detective: Miami Hack Week - Stolen Bounties: We plan on extending both One Room cases and also multiple location scavenger hunts around the city of Miami. This can drive users to client locations, restaurants, or live events.
You can also see the South Beach experience here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPBV6ayKJZk
Built With
- auth
- lightship
- lightshipmaps
- niantic
- remote
- unity
- vps
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