A STORYBOOK AND VIRTUAL REALITY LEARNING PLATFORM.
Start Smart is a free financial education program funded by CommBank and offered to more than 550,000 students each year. Our brief was to make these award-winning classes accessible in remote areas of Australia, and create a new, more engaging way for kids to learn about finance.
The Teleporter Adventures is a series of Virtual reality storybooks designed to teach kids about finance.
The books make use of 'The Teleporter’, a Start Smart branded, Google cardboard virtual reality headset that teleports the kids into the different worlds within the storybooks.
MEET SAMMY THE SPACE KOALA
The first book follows the story of Sammy the Space Koala, an Australian koala who travels through the galaxy in search of a magical present for her Grandma’s birthday. Throughout the journey kids are invited to participate in virtual reality experiences, learning important lessons around financial ‘needs’ and ‘wants’. Taken directly from the Start Smart curriculum.
INSIDE THE TELEPORTER
See a screengrab above of one of the VR adventures. In this experience Kip and Sammy rent a hover buggy and explore Planet Eek in search for a present for Sammy’s Grandma.
This screenshot is taken from inside Kip the robot’s rocket. Here Sammy the Koala must choose between the things she’ll ‘NEED’ for the her trip into outer space, and the things she may just ‘WANT’. Once the correct selection is made, kids are treated to a countdown and takeoff into space.
Kip and Sammy descend a sand dune on planet Eek.
Sammy zaps the asteroids with the shrink beam before they crash into the ship.
At the end of each VR experience kids are prompted to return to the book both by the super onscreen and a VO from Kip.
“My child learnt more from 10 minutes in space than 6 years on Earth!
INSIDE THE BOOK
In order for our VR app to run smoothly on mobile devices we embraced a low poly style of art direction. It was vital that the illustrations in the book and the VR assets retained a consistent look and feel, so to bridge the gap we aimed to integrate graphic geometric shapes into the book's layout, especially with key features in the landscape. All without compromising the illustrators charming drawing style.
The yellow Teleporter vortex acted as a shorthand cue for kids that it was time to use their Teleporter headset.
Research showed kids were losing concentration in long mathematics classes. The Teleporter is designed to act as a reward, and break the learning process up into sizeable chunks.
AN AWARD WINNING CHILDREN'S AUTHOR
We collaborated with one of Australia's most cherished children's authors, Ursula Dubosarsky. Ursula added the character, charm and much needed children's literature experience to our outline concept.
CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT
With the help of Sydney design studio FIN, we created and developed a cast of characters for both the 2D and 3D worlds.
LAUNCH FILM
TESTING
We tested The Teleporter Adventures extensively with the help of teachers, VR experts, paediatricians and of course kids. The feedback and iterative development helped us achieve a product that was both safe and fun for the kids. You can download the Teleporter Adventures from the Google Play or App Store. Good Luck!
RESULTS
100,000 kids teleported
Average time in app 11 mins
93% of kids understood the difference between a need and a want after the experience.
5 star rating on both Google Play and iTunes stores.
