Stranger Words

Inspiration

As fans of the show Stranger Things, we thought it would cool to create an AR app to bring the Upside Down to life. The Upside Down is an alternate dimension existing in parallel to the human world, and AR technology seemed the perfect way to capture it. We wanted to create a unique messaging app that could be a fun way to bring the community of Stranger Things fans together.

What it does

Stranger Words is an alternate messaging app where users can leave messages at certain geolocations and view previously left messages in AR. Messages are displayed as a series of Christmas lights that attach to a wall, a reference to the Stranger Things show.

How we built it

We used Swift and Xcode to work with the AR tools provided by Apple, namely ARKit and SpriteKit. First, we take the user's text input via a text box and separate the string into a character array. We then passed the message to the AR view controller. By swiping to the AR section of the app, users can see a different 2D image lighting up individual letters of their text message projected as a plane within the 3D scene.

Challenges we ran into

As Swift beginners, navigating the language proved to be a challenge. It was especially an issue when we were working with ARKit and SpriteKit to bring our AR idea into reality. We first had issues adding swipe functionality between the View Controllers. Once we found online examples and solved the issue, we then ran into problems with adding a 2D image into a 3D setting using SpriteKit; however, we were able to find a solution by displaying the 2D image as a plane within ARKit.

What we learned

Swift iOS development, Apple ARKit

What's next for Stranger Words

In the future we hope to add automatic wall detection (a new feature in ARKit 1.5). In addition, we hope to add a “Maps” screen where users can see the location of nearby messages.