Colour Me Curious

What is Colour Me Curious?

Colour vision is a fascinating concept that most people take for granted. It depends on complex interactions between different types of neurons in the eye and brain, yet the way colours combine to shape what we see can be surprisingly difficult to understand - especially for children. These ideas are often abstract and not easily conveyed through traditional teaching methods.

This project was designed to make learning about colour vision intuitive, interactive, and experiential. By allowing users to manipulate colour channels, match colours, and uncover hidden objects, we turn these abstract processes into something concrete and engaging. The goal is to foster curiosity about how we see the world, while building an early understanding of visual perception, colour mixing, and even colour vision deficiencies.

What it does

We developed an interactive AR-based educational tool that teaches children about colour vision through hands-on exploration. The project combines basic visual neuroscience principles with an intuitive interface to create a hands-on learning tool.

The experience includes:

A colour-matching slider game where users learn how different colour channels combine to form new colours.
A real-time camera filter that lets users toggle red, green, and blue channels to see how colours are constructed and altered.
An interactive environment where masking specific colours reveals hidden objects, demonstrating how colour filtering changes what we perceive.

How we built it

Spectacles

We built Colour Me Curious using Snap Spectacles and Lens Studio, creating an interactive experience where users can toggle individual RGB colour channels in real time and use sliders to mix different colour channels. By mapping each colour channel to a simple control, we allowed users to actively explore how colour perception is constructed from separate signals.

Challenges we ran into

One of the main challenges was adapting interaction from desktop-style touch input to Spectacles-based input. Interactions that worked in preview did not directly translate to the device, requiring us to rethink how users engage with the interface.

Another significant challenge was integrating different parts of the project within Lens Studio without them interfering with each other. Combining UI, interaction logic, and rendering effects often led to conflicts, where one component would unintentionally break another. This required careful structuring, debugging, and simplifying our setup to ensure everything worked together reliably.

We also encountered issues with UI systems and package compatibility, which added complexity when trying to implement more advanced interaction components.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We’re proud that we created an experience that is both scientifically grounded and intuitive to use. The final interaction allows users to directly manipulate colour perception in a way that is engaging and easy to understand. We also successfully translated a complex concept—how the brain constructs colour from separate signals—into a simple, interactive format. Most importantly, we built something that encourages curiosity and exploration.

What we learned

We learned how important it is to design interactions specifically for the platform rather than relying on familiar paradigms. Working with Spectacles pushed us to think in terms of spatial and gesture-based interaction instead of traditional screen-based input. We also gained experience troubleshooting real-time rendering and interaction issues, and learned how to simplify systems when things become overly complex. From a scientific perspective, we reinforced how powerful interactive tools can be for communicating abstract concepts like perception.

What's next for Colour Me Curious

Next, we’d like to expand the experience into a more structured exploration or game, where users can match colours or complete challenges based on limited visual information. We’re also interested in extending the concept to other aspects of vision, such as contrast, brightness, or even simulated colour vision deficiencies. Longer term, we see this as part of a broader toolkit for teaching neuroscience concepts through interactive and immersive experiences.