Inspiration Our inspiration for VisitCollege came from recognizing high school and transfer students' challenges in exploring their future educational options. Through interviews, we discovered that 45% of students had never visited their prospective colleges before enrollment, and 20% were not fully aware of the history or advantages of the institutions they were considering, including renowned ones like UC Berkeley. This highlighted the need for an accessible, immersive, and knowledgeable tool to help students efficiently visit and experience college campuses. To assist them in making more informed choices about their education. The gap in available resources for comprehensive college exploration led us to develop VisitCollege, aiming to bridge this information divide and empower students in their decision-making process.
What it does VisitCollege is an AR-powered mobile app designed to make college tours virtual, accessible, and engaging. Through your smartphone, explore campus landscapes, learn about facilities, and immerse yourself in the college environment. The app is filled with interactive easter eggs for an enjoyable experience! For example, scan Soda Hall to reveal insights about a top CS department or the Moffitt Library seal to uncover a campus legend about GPA. Made a misstep? No worries, follow our guide to Sather Tower and 'touch' the 4.0 Ball to recover your gpa. It’s college exploration made fun, easy, and informative.
How we built it We developed VisitCollege using ARFoundation for its AR capabilities, integrating ARCore for immersive, real-life experiences. The app incorporates high-quality maps from MapBox, utilizing real geographic coordinates for accurate campus representations. We used Unity, LinRender, and navmesh components for realistic campus navigation and route mapping, and Dotween for smooth UI animations.
Challenges we ran into Developing VisitCollege was a race against time. We only have 20 days to build the app we envisioned since we saw this competition too late. The biggest challenge was integrating new technologies like ARCore and Google Geo for the first time, which often meant navigating through a learning curve filled with trials and errors. This led us to opt for Mapbox for mapping functionalities. Our journey was about balancing the immersive AR experience with user-friendly navigation and maintaining a light, responsive app despite technical complexities. Currently, VisitCollege is in its demo phase, showcasing basic functions and available exclusively at UC Berkeley. Our original plan included many more exciting features, but they are yet to be implemented as we continue to expand beyond this initial launch.
Accomplishments that we're proud of We're proud of developing VisitCollege swiftly with a high aesthetic standard, especially during the college visit season. It's gratifying to see our app assist some high school students in the real world while they are exploring UC Berkeley.
What we learned Throughout this project, we learned the importance of user-centric design in educational tools. Balancing technical planning and time we have was a key lesson. We also gained insights into the potential of AR in educational applications, and the intricacies of integrating various technologies for a cohesive user experience.
What's next for VisitCollege We plan to expand VisitCollege by including more colleges and universities, enhancing the AR experience with more interactive elements, and incorporating features like virtual reality (VR) tours. We also aim to introduce social elements, allowing users to share/add college visiting experiences and tips. Long-term, we envision integrating AI to provide personalized college recommendations based on user preferences and academic profiles.
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