Capstone Project
Overview
Kwong Wai Shiu Hospital (KWSH) first came to the school, Ngee Ann Polytechnic, to request for an interactive AR app to enhance the learning experience at their Heritage Trail. And, this became one of the group assignment project. The main criteria of the project is that it must be Augmented Reality (AR). Afterwards, we form into teams of two to come up with a solution and develop a working prototype within 4 weeks before showing the client.
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During our third semester, my team and one other team combined together to further improve on this project. There were mainly 2 designer and 2 programmer. We have also took on other side roles such as 3D modelling and User Experience designer. For me, I was the main programmer that took care of the debugging and development process.
Problem Statement
KWSH has a rich history of over 100 years and they would like to share this history to the public, especially to the younger generations. Our client, KWSH came to us with the problem where their heritage trail is too dry and heavy content,
especially for children and young adults with short attention spans. Additionally, they also hope that the application could be user friendly to elderlies as well. Therefore, with the application created, hopefully the different users will be able to learn the history of KWSH in a more fun and engaging way rather than just reading plain text in the heritage trail.​
Ideation Process
We combine various ideas from the other team that were at the final competition. Hence, resulting in this application named ‘Kwong Wai Shiu Heritage Trail’ which incorporates AR storytelling, artefact collection, quizzes, riddles, and mini-games to tell the history of KWSH. Additionally, different age group of target audience was also taken into consideration, so that our application will be designed to suit children, young adults and elderlies. An example would be the type of mini games that was included in the application. The mini games was kept as simple as possible.
How the application works?
There are two modes for users to choose from, indoor and outdoor mode. Indoor mode is used in the case of bad weather such that the heritage trail can still run despite any weather conditions.
Each of the mode should only take approximately 45 minutes to complete because if the gameplay is too long, the target audience might get bored of the application, especially for the younger generations.
For indoor mode, the story is being told through a 2D graphic where after reading the story, players will be given silhouettes of 9 artefacts and they will have to search for those artefacts based on the silhouettes (or the shape of it). Afterwards when they have found the artefact, they will have to answer quizzes relating to the artefacts. There will also be mini-games for them to beat their peers by gaining the highest score for answering the correct answers and scoring high for mini-games. However, the maximum point they can gain out of the mini games is only 150. For every artefact found, players will unlock a new chapter of storyline where they can learn more about the history of KWSH through a fictional dialogue.
As for the outdoor mode, the story is being told through 3D AR where there are a total of 7 logos for the players to collect. In order to collect the logos, players will be given a riddles or clues about the location of a particular trail AR markers which they will need to scan it in order for the 3D storyline to appear. The storyline involves fictional dialogue and through the dialogue, it tells a
story of how the redevelopment plan of KWSH has gone missing. Thus, the successor of KWSH was tasked to find it and the story revolves around his journey to fulfill the task. Similarly, for outdoor there will also be mini-games for them to beat their peers by scoring high for mini-games. However, the maximum point they can gain out of the mini games is only 150.
At the end of each chapter for both mode, they will earn an artefact and logo respectively whichwill then be shown on the collection page.
Tools used
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Interface:
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The interface design and prototype are done mainly in Adobe XD - since there are two designers in the team, they will be able to collaborate in Adobe XD in real time together, making it the most suitable tool to use
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The backgrounds in the storyline are mainly done in Adobe Illustrator - since there are a lot of graphics involved in the storyline background, Adobe Illustrator is the best tool
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Animation for the indoor background storylines are done in Adobe Animate CC
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The 3D storyline in outdoor mode are all done in MAYA
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Programming:
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The application is done mainly in Unity - since there are two programmers in the team, we made use of a feature called Unity Collab that allow different users to work together to combine their project by updating or uploading their Unity
project file to Unity Collab.
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Managing of scripting is mainly done in Microsoft Visual Studio
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Hardware/ Network
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Android device
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Android version at least 5.0 and above
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No internet require
Demo Video