StellarSocial

Inspiration

We wanted to recreate the utility and functionality of a bulletin board in an AR space and give people a space to collaborate in a visually engaging and unique manner.

What it does

StellarSocial is an AR social media app, focused on bringing social media interaction into the real world. Bulletin boards are ubiquitous in our schools, workplaces, and community centers. They are an old yet effective way of communicating information, but what if we could upgrade this concept to the modern age? That’s where StellarSocial comes in. Using just your phone, leave your mark in a physical space by sharing your thoughts. These thoughts are represented by planets in your environment. Others can come along at any time to comment, like, or make posts of their own. As posts get more popular, they get larger. As more people comment on your posts, your planet gains moons. Share your ideas, and build a space together with StellarSocial.

How we built it

We used the Wonderland Engine to build our app, as it provides a collective experience to create web AR experiences using Javascript tools. We wanted the app to be easily accessible from multiple devices, which is the main reason we decided to use Wonderland.

Challenges we ran into

This was our very first Web AR application, and for most on our team, our second AR application ever. We were unfamiliar with the wonderland engine and struggled with making it work for our concepts and ideas. There were some issues setting up the coding environment for an image tracking function, so we ended up switching to an unanchored image track. Using GitHub Repo also provided some issues since we were working simultaneously, so there were some merging conflicts we had to resolve.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We were able to create an app in a new game engine in less than 2 days. We created a backend that was fully functional and synced it with Wonderland effectively.

What we learned

We learned a lot about how to use the Wonderland Engine, GitHub workflows, Javascript, and XR development in general. We also learned to test often and thoroughly and sync all the contributions regularly.

What's next for StellarSocial

Different themes, integrate with GPS packages to reflect real-time locations, allow users to create their own locations, integrate with businesses, and better support for AR headsets.