I had sole responsibility for Augmented Reality Design and 3D Modelling and Animations for the project. Having never attempted AR before, I was excited to get into the task at hand, and test my abilities to quickly pick up new skills.

I tested a multitude of different frameworks, softwares and methods to use AR, ranging from Unity, to Adobe Aero, to Office products and more. 

Getting to research and prototype with all these different tools was an incredibly enjoyable experience, and taught me a lot about rapid self-teaching and motivation.

Before going into animating and creating a training-experience for the specific piece we were given, we first wanted to test our handywork with a more simplistic shape, settling on this puzzle-cube. 

I modelled, animated, and created the AR experience, as well as gathering testing-evidence of my work to prove its use.

This was my first time combining my artistic skills with my more STEM-related interests: getting to create a fun, interactive experience through a combination of my technical expertise as well as my creative abilities was an opportunity I am glad I chose to pursue.

Other members of the team worked hard to create the layout and table that would hold the components for the chuck-piece we were making the AR experience for: Whilst I animated the assembly process using the Fusion360 files of the individual component pieces.

The final augmented-reality experience involved written and audio bilingual instructions in both English and Welsh, as well as recorded-video footage of actions taken on the assembly line, and component pieces on the table were identified using AR to overlay arrows and boxes to denote where each piece was located.

After presenting our work to a panel of judges at the official EESW convention, our team won the award for Best Innovation and Adaptability, and each of us received a Gold Crest award for our work.

This was an incredibly worthwhile experience, and I'm so glad I sought out the opportunity to learn more in a subject area I had never before touched, it opened up my eyes to the possibilities of what I could do with the right motivation and a fantastic team of hardworking people.