Augmented Reality Apps and Their Footprint in Innovation
Augmented reality became a well-known success when Pokemon Go was introduced to the world, and since then, the biggest players in the augmented reality app field have been primarily games.
Although many can attest that they think of virtual or augmented reality apps as just another medium for playing games, there are many other, innovative ways to use the power of this technology. One area that has been getting some attention lately is education.
The ability to create virtual images and provide information onto the physical world is very captivating, and some educators have seen its presence in classrooms already, albeit not very commonplace.
The education surrounding history, for example, brings up some unique challenges. Unlike other common subject areas, history is not only something that pushes you to use your imagination to recreate people, places, and events in your mind, it is also not tangible.
Because of this, it is very difficult to create interactive and engaging learning opportunities when it comes to history, including conveying the gravity of historical events, buildings, or locations.
One company wishes to change that. Enter in independent design studio, Time Passport Inc., whose specialty is time travel in augmented reality. With their team made up of designers in both 3D, and augmented reality, as well as actual historians, they understood the setbacks of not being able to fully immerse yourself into history. They wanted to take history out of just books and pictures, and through their collaborative efforts, created a way to place historical sites in front of you to explore first hand.
Introducing An AR App That Takes You Back in Time
Their first public demo released is The Hanging Gardens of Babylon augmented reality app, available to download free on iOS from the Apple app store. This full, immersive experience allows you to explore a full-scale replica of The Hanging Gardens of Babylon in any open area, or even view a small-scale version from the comfort of your own home. You can also take pictures and share your experience and learnings with your friends.
The full-scale replica also includes its very own treasure hunt that teaches users about its mysterious history of the Ancient World. Users can walk around and explore The Hanging Gardens of Babylon to uncover hidden scrolls and learn more about this historical feat of architecture.
The Hanging Gardens of Babylon is only Time Passport’s first release of their overall global initiative to provide memorable experiences to historical sites all around the world. There is no better way to learn than through the power of augmented reality, which has the ability to enhance engagement and improve meaningful learning without having the confines of a classroom or limitations of a book. You can now take the first steps in taking history out into any environment where mobile data access is available.
Time Passport Inc. started with The Hanging Gardens of Babylon because of its unknown location, and the fact that it provided an “excuse” to bring it to anyone, anywhere in the world. It allows users to get a feel of what’s to come as other future sites will be at their exact location.
According to Carina Poulin, the Co-founder and CEO of Time Passport Inc,
“Using augmented reality the way we did with this app, immerses us in this fabulous building of the past. The fact that we can actually walk in and out of it really gives us a feel of its presence, and this is possible using only your iPhone or iPad! We take pride in producing an impressive experience that is also historically accurate. The unknown location of the real Hanging Gardens of Babylon gives us a wonderful pretext to show it to people all over the world. While the exact appearance of the gardens remains to be known, our in-house historian has worked on making sure the elements and the content that we see respect what we know about it today.”
The Hanging Gardens of Babylon is only one of the seven wonders of the Ancient World, and Time Passport Inc. is working on making the other six available at their real location. Having originated in Quebec, Canada, where The Hanging Gardens of Babylon app was developed, Time Passport Inc’s newest project is under review which will mean expanding their work to the North American region soon.
Experience history for yourself on your iOS device by downloading The Hanging Gardens of Babylon augmented reality app. We’ll keep you posted on future updates.
*Correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that Time Passport originated in France. The company originated in Quebec, Canada.
