Years after developing the original Traffic Safety for Kids, we were contacted to develop a new version based on the newer Kinect 2 sensor. Alongside, we also created a completely new, Virtual Reality (VR) experience.
Traffic Safety for Kids VR was based on the original concept: an educational platform that makes it easy and engaging to teach kids road safety and traffic signs and rules. Instead of using a Kinect and a projected screen, however, this time kids ‘enter’ the virtual world by the means of a VR headset (Oculus Rift). Children can control movement with a standard controller, look around and see everything as through the eyes of their in-game avatar. To make it safer and easier to use, the app was deigned as a seated VR experience. This also helped with motion sickness, which was one of the biggest challenges, especially given the fact the software was created for kids. R&D in reducing motion sickness was what took most of the development time. We turned to anything, from military simulation sickness research papers, to unorthodox in-house research experiments. By the end, motion sickness reports during the testing phase with kids were minimized and in most cases non-existent.
The platform offers a new, exciting and intuitive way to teach children traffic rules and road signs without leaving the classroom. It also enables teachers to spot common mistakes that children make, by the means of a testing and scoring system designed specifically for VR. It helps instructors make sure the kids don’t repeat those mistakes in the real world and on their way to school.
You might be interested in checking out the Kinect 2 version: Traffic Safety for Kids 2
Key Features:
- Complete Virtual Reality experience that is fun and exciting to use.
- Specially designed motion sickness reduction techniques, to the point where it doesn’t pose a problem even for little kids.
- Intuitive control system with a minimal learning curve.
- Traffic AI that obeys traffic rules and is aware of the avatar’s presence.
- Smart scoring system which is aware of the user’s response (for instance looking left / right before crossing the road).
- Steady 90 frames per second, even on moderate hardware.
- Fully remastered graphics over the first installment.
Characters and assets (version 1) : Todor Imreorov; Tri Soft Ltd
Technology partner & testing coordinator: Tri Soft Ltd
Client: Didasko