The Virtual Cave

The Virtual Cave App on IOS
Target Images that You Can Choose

Inspiration

Since students have now transitioned to an online learning platform, we have decided to create an application that simulates an in-person classroom for the teacher to teach from, instead of using a video call approach. This would allow students to transition smoothly into this new environment. Also, since not physically going to school, decreases motivation to attend classes. This AR classroom will prevent the possible lack of structure in a student's day. Instructors can then post their pre-recorded lecture and students can then have the option to choose whatever exists in their desired learning environment.

What it does

The Virtual Cave allows instructors to upload recordings of their lectures and creates 3D simulation of a classroom for the courses that the students have enrolled in. The app will ask the students which target images they can find in their homes to link to the 3D models. Students have the option to choose whatever exists in their desired learning environment. Our app is built to be user friendly with a dashboard and forums for each enrolled course. Professors can choose when to host their class times and save recordings for the student to play at their own convenience. Not only does the server provide a gate-way for users to access their lectures in “real-time”, it has a scheduling interface to organize your homework, meetings, and other tasks.

How we built it

Our app was built using a UI kit, Glide, with the augmented reality portion of the app being built with the use of echoAR. 3D models can be chosen from any source, or 3D CAD designed.

Challenges we ran into

One main challenge we faced was the time constraint of having only 24 hours to complete a project. As well as it being the first time members are exposed to UI design. Thus, in this limited time-frame we tried to learn as much as we could while building our project. Moreover, we encountered difficulties using the AR interface, echoAR, since many image formats were not acceptable. In order to troubleshoot this issue, multiple large-files were downloaded in different paths. This reduced the amount of time we had to focus on smaller details and bugs. Nonetheless, the 3D image we used for the classroom desk and chairs could not be resized. Resizing was only available for video files. As a team, we were able to resolve most of these issues in the given time.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Despite not having prior knowledge in the tools needed to build our project, we were still able to complete a working product. We learned how to use echoAR and UI platforms without any guidance, as a team.

What we learned

We learned how to build a mobile app and incorporate AR for the first time since none of our team members had prior experience in these areas.

What's next for The Virtual Cave

One feature our team initially planned to include was implementing an attendance tracker, for teachers to keep track and provide bonus marks if desired. The tracker would be embedded in a button before attending the lecture. However, we were not able to implement this feature due to time constraints.