CalmCoach

Started in VR because our AR plugin was missing and not working

Challenge - Gamification in AR

Challenge 2 - Everyday AR for Behavioural Transformation & Inclusion Design an AR experience that gamifies pro-social behaviour in everyday apps to deliver a clear societal benefit and built-in inclusion - then show how you’ll measure and sustain that change. Choose a domain and define mechanics that inform without manipulating. Bake in inclusion from day one and set evaluation targets. Cover ethics, and outline a business path. Deliver a prototype or mock-up and/or video (free of choice), your business case, evaluation metrics if relevant and an ethics brief.

Inspiration

The idea for Calm Coach was inspired by stories of a construction worker being yelled at and a restaurant employee facing aggressive customers, highlighting how easily everyday workplace interactions can escalate without proper training.

What it does

Calm Coach prepares employees to respond effectively in conflict situations, providing guidance and real-time feedback to handle interactions calmly and safely.

How we built it

Our original plan was to develop an AR application using Unreal Engine, since we had the most experience with Unreal and the Meta Quest. However, we quickly ran into a major issue: the essential Meta XR plugins are not supported on macOS. Because our entire team was working on Macs, we couldn’t integrate the required AR features and were unable to build the Unreal AR application as intended. Due to time pressure, we switched to a minimal viable solution and built our prototype in Figma instead.

Challenges we ran into

After deciding which challenge to tackle, we thought we had the perfect idea and started working on it. After several hours, we realized that a similar system already exists worldwide, which was quite discouraging. We then tried to come up with another idea, but none of us were satisfied, as we couldn’t all agree. Perfectionism ran high, and hunger and ongoing discussions took priority. Whenever we made a decision, a new minor issue would arise, and addressing it required adjusting everything else. Additionally, feedback from the judges left us feeling uncertain at times.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Our first idea, which we developed quickly Completing a thorough ethics brief Getting along well together How fast we managed to create a Figma

What we learned

Sometimes you have to be satisfied with a solution and accept that it cannot be perfect for everyone Having a decision-maker or team captain would have been helpful