As some of you may know, last week we hosted Augmented Reality Thursday, or ART. On the first Thursday of each month we will be hosting a fun AR mixer event with food, drinks, people and - most importantly - augmented reality!

To kick off the very first ART, we invited students from the Utrecht School of the Arts (HKU) to present an augmented reality project they are developing for the Living GeoLab. The lab is part of GeoFort, a fortress-like island created by the New Dutch Waterline, and the students were tasked with creating AR experiences as part of an educational attraction.

Presenters Douwe de Witt and Rick van Ginkel (two members of a seven person team) walked the crowd at ART through their project, Geo Mysterie. The game challenges young visitors to the GeoFort to solve a mystery using augmented reality as their detective’s magnifying glass.

“Geo Mysterie is an AR scavenger hunt around the story of Jay Indeed, the Professor and the Mighty Tornados,” says de Witt. “Our goal with this game is to take children on an epic journy where they discover the Professor’s true identity and will have to save the world.”

Using smartphones, players will be able to follow hidden footprints on floors and scan for invisible objects in various scenes of the mystery. Other aspects of the game involve hunting for tornados in AR, extinguishing virtual fires with virtual hoses and investigating debris using quick response (QR) codes.

ART attendees were intrigued by the concept, which has been selected by the GeoFort to be realized in the next several weeks. To learn more about the team’s project and concepts, visit their team homepage!

To see photos from ART, check out the official Layar Flickr page!