Baby Steps

Welcome Screen
Ingredients
Fruit Stand
Picked Fruits going into Blender
Smoothie Ready
Mission Accomplished

Inspiration

COVID-19 has made it hard for kids around the world as schools have shut down. We wanted to build an app to simplify learning for kids that's built like a game. While in school, kids learn math and science through real objects and materials. We wanted to enable the same experience at home and the first thing that struck our minds was AR. We also wanted to make the whole experience fun and interactive, so we turned them into little chefs for this one!

What it does

BabySteps is an AR learning app for kids. This is an attempt to teach math and science to kids in the most interactive and realistic way. We covered concepts like fruits, food, addition and subtraction. The recipe for the day is a mixed fruit smoothie. We first show all the ingredients required for the smoothie and then the kids go shopping. They pick the specified number of ingredients required and in the process, they learn numbers. If they pick more than the specified number, we give a visual effect indicating an error. All the ingredients are put into our magic blender and the smoothie is ready to be served! And all this happens in AR!

How we built it

Once we decided the storyline, the most challenging part of the project was making the models. We used some available models and built the other on Autodesk Fusion 360.

The app was developed in Unity using ARFoundation. We built the scene and repositioned all the models to fit into the scene perfectly. Next, we scripted the functionality of the storyline using C#. We animated the required animations using Timeline on Unity. Certain animations like glowing and dissolve effects were done using shaders.

We then designed the UI for the scene. Lastly, we added the audio files for the respective scenes.

Challenges we ran into

The colour materials were not being rendered properly
We were new to AutoDesk, so it took us a lot of time to build the models
UI glitches
Shaders not running properly
App build issues

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Building a fully functional AR app for Android in the short amount of time
We levelled up from Beginner to Intermediate/Advanced in Unity's ARFoundation
Created an interactive AR experience along with visual effects

What we learned

Modelling with AutoDesk
Unity and ARFoundation
C#

What's next for BabySteps

We want to add more recipes with different difficulty levels. That way we want to teach more concepts through them. We want to simplify learning even further!