CRITRS | GovHack Hackerspace 2016

Submitted by mcraigie on Sat, 07/30/2016 - 14:52

Team Name:

Team YAMM

Encounter and photograph our amazing wildlife! Explore and learn about our country! All while contributing to open data, getting exercise and having fun!

We live in a beautiful country; rich with wildlife, parks and landmarks. Unfortunately, very few of us are aware of what can be found around us. This year for Govhack 2016, team YAMM have been working on something that we believe will give people a way to truly connect with their surroundings.

Introducing CRITRS. Learn all about wildlife and landmarks around you by playing this stunning Augmented Reality mobile game.

How it works

After a brief tutorial, we place players on a map of their local area based on their geolocation. Using open data, the game knows what suburb the player is in, what animals live in that suburb, any nearby landmarks, and whether or not the player is currently standing in a park.

As the player navigates the real world, there is a chance they will randomly encounter a wild animal in the game.

When a player encounters an animal, they have a chance to capture the animal on camera using Augmented Reality, which overlays the animal on the real world, creating a truly immersive experience.

Once a photo of the animal is captured, it is saved to your encyclopedia, so you can learn more about it in future.

We have built a huge range of landmarks into the game. Including, but not limited to: Vic Maps’ features of interest, Geelong’s trees and libraries, ABC online photo stories, and thousands more across the entire country.

Expansion to mixed reality platforms such as the HoloLens opens up opportunities for greater immersion than handheld augmented reality.

Features

Upload data to the Atlas of Living Australia
We believe in the power of open research, and that’s why we designed a critter submitter feature that allows players to take photos of real wildlife they come across and submit those as sightings to the Atlas of Living Australia.

Taking a photo of animal encounters adds the animal to your Encyclopedia.
Animals are categorised by rarity.
Being in a national park increases the chances of an encounter. By collecting all of the animals in a park, they are able to earn badges.
Players can use berries to attract native animals in the game.
Players can purchase berries and merchandise in the in-game store.

The game is available to download on the Google Play store: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.govhack.critrs

(If the above link doesnt work - try again a little later)

Demo/Homepage URL:

Homepage

Video URL:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2tV83RdT8g

Evidence Repository URL:

CRITRS Repo

Prizes:

ABC News Content

Commerically Viable Hack

Creative Humanities Hack

Entrepreneurial Hack

Inspired by Research Hack

International Prize: Storytelling Hack

Location data

NCRIS data

No Boundaries Data Hack

Geelong Open Data - Creative Challenge

Map my Library

MAV Technology Bounty

Parks Vic -Experience

The Regional Challenge

Vic Map Features of Interest

How can City of Melbourne work with the community to  develop a better understanding of the city’s biodiversity?

Melbourne's Ecology

Region:

Victoria

Used Datasets:

Dataset Name:

Atlas of Living Australia

Publishing Organisation/Agency:

NCRIS (National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy)

Jurisdiction of Data:

Australian Government

Dataset URL:

http://biocache.ala.org.au

How did you use this data in your entry?:

We used species data (e.g. name, biology, conservation status and more) and sighting data (species, lat, log). We wrote python code to process, filter and clean up the sighting data. This required fuzzy string matching on the many various possible names (both scientific and normal). This animal sighting data is used to calculate which animals are available in the player's current area. The more sightings of an animal in the area, the more likely the player will randomly encounter that animal instead of another. We used the species information to build pages for each animal within our in-game animal encyclopaedia. We have a feature in our game to take a photo of a real animal, tag the species and upload it as a new sighting to the Atlas of Living Australia.

Dataset Name:

Melbourne BioBlitz data

Publishing Organisation/Agency:

City of Melbourne

Jurisdiction of Data:

Local Government

Dataset URL:

https://data.melbourne.vic.gov.au/Environment/Melbourne-Bio-Blitz-2016/ew6k-chz4

How did you use this data in your entry?:

This sighting data was combined with the Atlas of Living Australia, and it is used to calculate which animals are available in the player's current area. The more sightings of an animal in the area, the more likely the player will randomly encounter that animal instead of another.

Dataset Name:

ABC Local Online Photo Stories 2009-2014

Publishing Organisation/Agency:

ABC

Jurisdiction of Data:

Australian Government

Dataset URL:

https://data.gov.au/dataset/abc-local-online-photo-stories-2009-2014/

How did you use this data in your entry?:

We used this data to generate places of interest (POIs) in our game. We hope to encourage players to visit and learn about these POIs.

Dataset Name:

Landmarks and Places of Interest

Publishing Organisation/Agency:

City of Melbourne?

Jurisdiction of Data:

Local Government

Dataset URL:

https://data.melbourne.vic.gov.au/Assets-Infrastructure/Landmarks-and-Places-of-...

How did you use this data in your entry?:

We used this data to generate places of interest (POIs) in our game. We hope to encourage players to visit and learn about these POIs.

Dataset Name:

Public Memorials and Sculptures

Publishing Organisation/Agency:

City of Melbourne?

Jurisdiction of Data:

Local Government

Dataset URL:

https://data.melbourne.vic.gov.au/Assets-Infrastructure/Public-Memorials-and-Scu...

How did you use this data in your entry?:

We used this data to generate places of interest (POIs) in our game. We hope to encourage players to visit and learn about these POIs.

Dataset Name:

Geelong Regional Library Corporation - Library branch information - 2016

Publishing Organisation/Agency:

City of Greater Geelong

Jurisdiction of Data:

Local Government

Dataset URL:

https://data.gov.au/dataset/grlc-2016-branchinfo

How did you use this data in your entry?:

We used this data to generate places of interest (POIs) in our game. We hope to encourage players to visit and learn about these POIs.

Dataset Name:

Community Halls - City of Greater Geelong

Publishing Organisation/Agency:

City of Greater Geelong

Jurisdiction of Data:

Local Government

Dataset URL:

https://data.gov.au/dataset/community-halls-city-of-greater-geelong

How did you use this data in your entry?:

We used this data to generate places of interest (POIs) in our game. We hope to encourage players to visit and learn about these POIs.

Dataset Name:

Golden Plains Tennis Courts

Publishing Organisation/Agency:

Golden Plains Shire Council

Jurisdiction of Data:

Local Government

Dataset URL:

https://data.gov.au/dataset/golden-plains-tennis-courts

How did you use this data in your entry?:

We used this data to generate places of interest (POIs) in our game. We hope to encourage players to visit and learn about these POIs.

Dataset Name:

Golden Plains Stadiums

Publishing Organisation/Agency:

Golden Plains Shire Council

Jurisdiction of Data:

Local Government

Dataset URL:

https://data.gov.au/dataset/golden-plains-stadiums

How did you use this data in your entry?:

We used this data to generate places of interest (POIs) in our game. We hope to encourage players to visit and learn about these POIs.

Dataset Name:

Surf Coast Shire Golf Courses

Publishing Organisation/Agency:

Surf Coast Shire Council

Jurisdiction of Data:

Local Government

Dataset URL:

https://data.gov.au/dataset/surf-coast-shire-golf-courses

How did you use this data in your entry?:

We used this data to generate places of interest (POIs) in our game. We hope to encourage players to visit and learn about these POIs.

Dataset Name:

SLQ - Queensland public libraries

Publishing Organisation/Agency:

State Library of Queensland

Jurisdiction of Data:

Queensland Government

Dataset URL:

https://data.gov.au/dataset/queensland-public-libraries

How did you use this data in your entry?:

We used this data to generate places of interest (POIs) in our game. We hope to encourage players to visit and learn about these POIs.

Dataset Name:

Sydney Basin bioregion power stations

Publishing Organisation/Agency:

The Australian Government Bioregional Assessment Programme

Jurisdiction of Data:

Australian Government

Dataset URL:

https://data.gov.au/dataset/8ddc4f5a-3493-4b8e-a182-31d1ff93f7f2

How did you use this data in your entry?:

We used this data to generate places of interest (POIs) in our game. We hope to encourage players to visit and learn about these POIs.

Dataset Name:

Location of ACT Schools

Publishing Organisation/Agency:

data.gov.au ?

Jurisdiction of Data:

ACT Government

Dataset URL:

https://data.gov.au/dataset/location-of-act-schools

How did you use this data in your entry?:

We used this data to generate places of interest (POIs) in our game. We hope to encourage players to visit and learn about these POIs.

Dataset Name:

Parks Victoria PV PARKRES (GovHack 2016)

Publishing Organisation/Agency:

Parks Victoria

Jurisdiction of Data:

Victorian Government

Dataset URL:

https://www.data.vic.gov.au/data/dataset/pv-parkres-govhack-2016

How did you use this data in your entry?:

We used this data to create special areas in the game where players are more likely to have a random encounter with an animal. We hope to encourage players to become aware of the multitude of parks around them by incentivising them to visit.

Dataset Name:

FOI - Point - Vicmap Features of Interest

Publishing Organisation/Agency:

Department of Environment, Land, Water & Planning (DELWP)

Jurisdiction of Data:

Victorian Government

Dataset URL:

https://www.data.vic.gov.au/data/dataset/foi-point-vicmap-features-of-interest

How did you use this data in your entry?:

We used this data to generate places of interest (POIs) in our game. To do this we converted the coordinate system and format to match the rest of our data. We hope to encourage players to visit and learn about these POIs.

Dataset Name:

Geelong Trees (Shapefile)

Publishing Organisation/Agency:

City of Greater Geelong's Parks department

Jurisdiction of Data:

Local Government

Dataset URL:

https://data.gov.au/dataset/geelong-trees/resource/3b0f1a25-c86e-45ac-a25f-c450f...

How did you use this data in your entry?:

We used this data to identify individual trees that we then use to represent the rest of their species in the Geelong region. We used this data to create special areas in the game where players are more likely to have a random encounter with an animal. We hope to encourage players to become aware of the multitude of parks around them by incentivising them to visit.

Dataset Name:

PSMA Administrative Boundaries

Publishing Organisation/Agency:

Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet

Jurisdiction of Data:

Australian Government

Dataset URL:

https://data.gov.au/dataset/psma-administrative-boundaries

How did you use this data in your entry?:

We use the suburb boundary data to divide the map into smaller areas. This allows us to limit animal encounters to only those animals that have been sighted within these areas.

Event Location:

Melbourne