AR Social Distance Immune-System-Boosting Vegetable Hats

Custom made hats and other things by Elin Hörnkvist
Introduction
How to use it

Inspiration

The information regarding social distance varies, in some situations, it is an arms-length, and in others, it is 2 metres. For parents interacting with their children, it can be complicated to explain what it means to have a distance to someone else, and abstract to also explain the correct size.

While keeping a safe distance to other people is one way to protect yourself and others another equally important proactive measure is to boost your immune system. We all know that a healthy plant-based diet plays a big role here. So we took a short cut and used research already collected by global spoken word artist Prince EA reference to find out which type of plants are most potent for this particular purpose. We found the following plants to have the most positive effects on your immune system: Elderberry, Broccoli sprouts, Garlic, Ginger, Tumeric, Beetroot and Golden Kiwi.* Out of these we have this far made 3D-model representations of garlic and broccoli (to represent broccoli sprouts).

Combining these two very potent strategies in fighting this virus (social distancing and boosting your immune system) we ended up with: Giant immune-system-boosting plants as hats on peoples heads telling you what distance is right. The only natural way forward we figured!

We are very aware that this is a non-traditional idea and hope that AR can be used in a clever and playful way to help share information.

What it does

Displays super size vegetable hats on people, and if you see them properly you are too close!

Try it out by visiting the Hats Instagram or try some of the effects immediately by clicking these links:

The video seems to not be playable within the Devpost framework, but is viewable here: https://youtu.be/kwmIBUzwP8Y

How we built it

We made an open call for 3D artists who were interested in building a hat, and Elin Hörnkvist joined. She modelled a few hats that she thought was fun, and Jonas added them in Spark AR Studio and prepared them for upload to Instagram. Carl provided inspiration and text regarding immune defence and tested the effects with his family.

What's next for AR Social Distance Immune-System-Boosting Vegetable Hats

We would crowdsource hats and other objects from the worldwide community of 3d artists, and at the same time add some gameplay, fun functionality and educational content prompting people to keep their distance and continue eating healthy (and planet-friendly) veggies. It is possible to also track surfaces, and it would be natural to use the ground for adding 3D objects that help understand the distance we should have, without the need of tracking faces.