Project Name: SEABIRD

💡 Inspiration

The inspiration for SEABIRD came from the natural world—specifically, the perilous and beautiful journey a young seabird takes when learning to fly. We wanted to capture that moment of struggle and ultimate freedom. We asked ourselves: Can we bring the magic of that first flight into the user's living room? This desire to bridge the gap between nature and digital interaction drove us to explore Augmented Reality.

🎮 What it does

SEABIRD is an immersive Augmented Reality (AR) simulation game where players guide a young seabird through the trials of learning to flight.

• Immersive Environment: Using the player's real-world environment as the backdrop, the game spawns a seabird that interacts with physical surfaces.
• Flight Mechanics: The user controls the bird, helping it gain momentum, catch wind currents, and avoid obstacles in their actual physical space.
• Goal: The objective is to successfully guide the bird from a "grounded" state to full flight, simulating the natural learning curve of a fledgling.

🛠️ How we built it

We leveraged the power of the Meta Spacial Editor SDK to create high-fidelity AR interactions.

• Core Engine: We utilized the Meta AR platform to handle surface detection and object placement, ensuring the bird feels "anchored" in the real world.
• Asset Creation: We designed 3D models and animations to represent the bird's movements realistically.
• Logic & Physics: We programmed the flight physics to respond to user input, simulating lift and gravity.
• Platform: The application was specifically engineered and optimized for Android devices.

⚙️ Challenges we ran into

Our biggest hurdle was the Android Build Process.

• Compatibility: We faced significant issues configuring the Meta AR SDK to play nicely with our specific Android build target.
• Debugging: Troubleshooting AR crashes on the device was difficult, as the errors were often opaque during the build phase.
• Optimization: Getting the AR tracking to run smoothly without overheating the phone or draining the battery required several iterations of code optimization.

🏆 Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are most proud of the fact that we have a playable build. despite the technical roadblocks.

• Seeing the bird actually take flight in our living room for the first time was a huge milestone.
• We successfully managed to compile the project to Android and have a stable loop where users can interact with the bird.

🧠 What we learned

"Rush Hour" Management:

• We learned the hard way that time management is critical. The "Rush Hour" of the hackathon deadline taught us to prioritize core features (the flight mechanic) over "nice-to-haves."
• We gained a deeper understanding of the Meta AR development pipeline and how to troubleshoot complex SDK integration errors under pressure.

🚀 What's next for SEABIRD

Our immediate goal is Production Readiness.

• Polishing: We plan to refine the animations and physics to make the flight feel even more organic.
• Environment Interaction: We want the bird to be able to land on specific furniture or react to walls.
• App Store Release: The ultimate goal is to publish SEABIRD on the app store so users everywhere can experience the joy of flight in their own homes.

Built With

• android
• meta
• unity