Travelling, Together!

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  The images required to gain the fact files. (Put the camera over the flower you wish to see an article about.)

Inspiration

The project, initially, went through a few different drafts. All of the ideas always involving the user travelling and obviously using AR to scan something, though the main issue was just what that something would be. The main idea initially would be that the user got to travel to different local landmarks and be able to register them, but we thought that such an idea was, while not necessarily bad, would've been a popular one amongst the competition. This led me to the idea of instead looking at places, to look at something else. plants. While the idea wasn't really anything special initially, we decided to try and approach it in a way similar to a game by adding a small figure to travel around with you, similar to a mascot to make it more interesting, and had there been more time we probably would've been able to develop the mascot.

The main reason we went with the idea of Nature and Plants was mostly derived from the specific line "exploring the outside world" with the obvious inspiration being derived from the outdoor part.

What it does

Travelling, Together! is an AR experience that, in this stage of the Demo, is an experience which gives the user the ability to learn about the flora around them, just by using their camera. By putting their Camera over the plant in question, it will come up with the name of the plant and a general explanation of what it is. The idea of it being that it serves as an educational tool that teaches the user about their local plant life.

How we built it

The first thing we did to create the project was to divvy out the work between us three, with the end solution being:

Declan: Coding/Programming aspect

Mason: 3D Modelling/Design work

Cameron: Creation of concept & overall production.

and with that, the jobs were decided. Declan used the templates on the 8th wall as inspiration for the code, Mason used his 3ds Max skills from his year at College to make the 3d models for some of the plants, and I did any miscellaneous activities such as going outside and collecting flowers for reference, writing up the project concept, doing all the "paper work", while also overseeing the project as a whole.

Challenges we ran into

The main issue that we came across was that while it did manage to detect the individual flowers, it only recognized the specific images that we gave to it as an example, which made it completely ineffective against real life flowers, however this was solved by Declan with the assistance of one of the Teachers by changing the image that it looked for, which wasn't a very good solution admittedly, it served it's purpose. Obviously with a bigger budget and less time constraints, I'd imagine that this would've been resolved in a more professional matter.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

I think the biggest accomplishment that we've actually managed to get something worth submitting, well, submitted. While there's a decent chance we don't end up winning something, I think the fact we had the opportunity to participate was the important part.

What we learned

We learnt:

• How to use 8th Wall (To some degree)
• How image targeting works
• That Fire Alarms are VERY inconvenient (When it's just a test. No students were accidentally burnt during the duration of the Hackathon, of course.)
• To not get overconfident.
• That Papa John's is VERY expensive (It cost £277 to fund about 16 students worth of Pizza, which in my honest opinion is quite extortionate)
• Sometimes, it isn't exactly about the money but the Journey along the way.

What's next for Travelling, Together!

While I doubt that Atlas Association will ever continue the project, I feel that there is some massive potential in the idea that could be better executed by a more experienced corporation.

Built With

• 3ds-max
• 8thwall
• chatgpt