Inspiration

The inspiration for GeoQuest AR emerged from a desire to merge the exploratory essence and exergame nature of Geocaching with the digital interactivity and health incentives of Pokémon GO, using AR to add the journey to the destination that is Geocaching. We call it Geoquesting.

Fast facts Geocaching

There are more than 3 million active geocaches worldwide.
- Geocaches are hidden in 191 different countries on all seven continents (even Antarctica)!
- More than 642 million "Found it" and "Event Attended" logs have been recorded since the game started in 2000.
- Currently, there are over 361,000 geocache owners throughout the world.
- Geocachers gather at over 36,000 events annually to share stories and play the game.
- There are more than 200 geocaching organizations around the world.
- Geocaching.com is translated into 24 languages, Android and iOS apps are translated into over 20 languages.

Research Pokemon Go

"Mobile apps combining game play with physical activity lead to substantial short-term activity increases and, in contrast to many existing interventions and mobile health apps, have the potential to reach activity-poor populations."
"Pokémon Go leads to significant increases in physical activity over a period of 30 days, with particularly engaged users increasing their activity by 1473 steps a day on average, a more than 25% increase compared with their prior activity level (P<.001). In the short time span of the study, we estimate that Pokémon Go has added a total of 144 billion steps to US physical activity."

(Research into pokemon go health benefits)[https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27923778/]

Geo-questing gamify’s the journey to the cache and aims to increase physical and mental well-being by incentivizing outdoor exploration, learning, and connection with ones surroundings. The concept revolves around using people's innate curiosity about their surroundings to create an engaging, health-enhancing experience that transcends traditional gaming, making the journey through the city's history and landmarks as rewarding as the destination itself.

What it does

A geoquesting app prototype that takes a person on an interactive journey with quests and challenges that when successfully navigated lead to the destination and physical geocaching activities.

How we built it

Unity, NREAL XR SDK, Mapbox SDK, Meshy.AI, Mixamo animations, Trilib for glb support.

Challenges we ran into

getting a Geocaching.com API key
navigating sdk conflicts between NREAL and Mapbox SDK's using same AR libraries.
head pose tracking on a 2D plane

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Omni-directional story-telling. The app is interactive no matter which direction you approach the destination via sphere colliders that extend out x number of meters from the destination GPS coordinate.
Aligning GPS data to the augmented reality scene. Using mapbox sdk to convert from GPS to scene coordinates.
Navigating the NREAL SDK interactions via demo prototyping. We thank XREAL for their attentive support.
Using Meshy.AI to generate game objects at runtime, and using Trilib to download the glb's to device over the network. This gives the ability to leave digital items at the destination. Leaving items at the destination is a custom of geocaching.