LIFTAR

How may we engage parents and children on collaboratory educational lesson plans for 5th grade Mathematics using Argumented Reality?

In elementary school, most parents use to help their children with homework, but by fifth grade, the majority of them can't help me anymore. There’s something very sad about how homework and curriculum get more difficult every year, and parents become obsolete, even despite their best efforts. Our team members experience wasn't different, and this is what allowed us to come up with LiftAR.

The Verizon Connected Futures Prototyping and Talent Development program, in partnership with NYC Media Lab, supports the development of new media and technology projects from universities across New York City, linking students and faculty with industry experts. Our team was one of 12 selected. Thanks to this fellowship we were able to start developing LiftAR.

PROPOSAL

LiftAR is an Augmented Reality game experience for parents and children to engage together on educational lesson plans for 5th grade Mathematics. Our lesson plan aims to build a relationship between parent and child while learning and working together.

We began with a paper prototype. The user interaction began to take form which allowed us to move into the technical phase. Once we began understanding technical limitations and struggles, we were able to adjust the interaction accordingly. In addition, we made sure to conduct several playtests, in order to gather information, and test if the app itself was effective.

After the program, we had a functional prototype which we presented to the technical community at a Verizon Demo Day event. We gave a presentation about our project, findings, and future steps. I spoke about how the idea came about, and how we designed the interaction around our shared experiences.

PARTICIPANTS

LiftAR was created by a multidisciplinary team, all of us from the program MFA Design and Technology at Parsons, The New School for Design

Karla Polo: 3D Modeling & Animation Programing / Filmmaking
La Tricia Watford: Team Leader/ UI Design
Aaron Lee: Developer
Aimee Abalos: Developer
Sydney Adams: Developer / Storytelling

Mentor:Craig Elliott Brown
In collboration with NYC Media Lab and Verizon

PRESS