Team with Natalia Georgiadi, Eleni Kokkoli Papadopoulou, Giorgos Kordatos, Manolis Sparakis

Description

GoChalandriani (aka. ‘GoCha’) is a pervasive role-playing game for introducing elementary school students to archaeology. The team designed a child-centered (age 6-10) educating system that includes a full working Android Tablet application that enables kids explore hidden ancient monuments in the historic area of Chalandriani, Syros. Using BLE proximity sensors by Estimote we developed a working prototype on Android tablet that can detect hidden monuments like cycladic figurines, ceramic pottery, ceramic “fry” pans etc of that era. Our aim was to develop children’s interest in history by letting them explore it through a combination of technological and physical contact with monuments.

My Year 0 in Android Prototyping

Me and Kordatos provided the team with a fully working prototype. It was our first attempt to teach ourselves coding for mobile applications. Together with the team we evaluated the prototype on usability, aesthetics and the efficacy of its teaching method. Results showed that users enjoyed the game very much. The exploring procedure provided them with great amusement, impatience for what we were about to find, creativity on where to look and team-work spirit. Mostly positive where the comments and as a team we aim to develop it further as a platform for museums to customize the game according to their theme e.g. Delphi or Roman Empire monuments exploration or even Mayas exploration for children in Peru etc. All demand monuments to be connected with bluetooth beacons so that the game works. The video below demonstrates (in a demo area with demo users) the functions of the GoCha location-based game.