Hearthy - Let them hear the Earth
Basic information
Project Title
Full project title
Category
Project Description
Hearthy is an interactive augmented reality application that is looking to inspire sustainable agents of change. Its goal is to allow children between 7 and 10 years old with congenital hearing loss hear what the earth is claming for and rescue them from oblivion. Thanks to Hearthy they can leave their bubble and shape a meaningful purpose of life in a new way through a sustainable experience. Can you hear the Earth calling? Kick off this journey and become an agent of change.
Project Region
EU Programme or fund
Description of the project
Summary
Our interactive application is looking to provide an inclusive solution to children between 7 and 10 years old with Congenital hearing loss. With this platform, we are expecting to inspire sustainable agents of change by reuniting them in the same cause no matter their disability.
Our intent is to help them understand the current status of our environment through the Sustainable Development Goals Agenda. While attending to their hearing needs of audiometry therapy and inspiring them to be agents of change. Thereby with this solution, we want to build an engaging experience in which kids can understand their role in reaching these goals by giving them cues on how to have a positive impact on the world.
Why are we focusing our idea on kids with hearing loss? Disable kids are a mainly excluded group when thinking about technological activities like video games. Besides, these devices are not recommended to kids with hearing difficulties as they might delay their learning processes. That is why our intention is to break the wheel and make technology accessible to kids within this target group.
In that matter, we intend to create an interactive augmented reality application based on voice, visuals, and hearing commands, that will engage the user and enlighten them with sustainable practices that they can put into practice in their everyday life. Moreover, this technology will change the way kids interact with screen-based solutions by providing an interactive experience in a real-world environment in showing them the cause and effect of their actions.
Finally, The app will be based on a storytelling experience where we will present the past, present, and future of planet earth to show the consequences of our actions and the way this could be improved with simple actions they will put into practice on a daily basis. While they fulfill different stages, kids will win badges of agents to this world.
Key objectives for sustainability
Sustainability is our cornerstone in this project. Our daily agendas should always be focused on this topic, once we are the only ones who can really work towards it. Although everyone talks about sustainability, there are few people who actually act in order to produce it.
In our project, we would like to introduce this complex concept to children, once they are the next agents of change and can be considered the basis for a sustainable world, having us as their educators. How? By making them understand that their actions directly influence the environment around them and that since they are the next generation, their sustainable behaviors can change our planet for the better.
Our application will have as a main goals to give these disabled children the possibility to be a part of something bigger, by being the ones who will accelerate the advent of the green deal and by introducing them to the 17 Sustainable Development Goals proposed by the United Nations.
We also want to increase the awareness about this topic by instigating and encouraging them to perform some activities that would, somehow, produce a meaningful change in terms of sustainability in our planet. However, we cannot only rely this application in performing activities: furthermore, we must show them the next steps of the process, in order for them to not only maintain the interest on the topic but also to gain some knowledge about it that should be developed in the future.
Our idea is to develop different storytelling for each one of the Sustainable Development Goals, showing them the past, the present and the ideal future, exposing how certain actions can influence what happens around them.
Key objectives for aesthetics and quality
When it comes to the aesthetic part and since we will be developing an application for children between the ages of 7 and 10 years old, our aim is to produce simple but resounding illustrations which can truly link them to the importance of the Sustainable Development Goals. Furthermore, we will be using an augmented reality application as a way to increase the quality of the experience itself. We believe that this kind of approach can lead to a more realistic and powerful experience once we are creating and introducing a whole new world to children that does not exist in their real life. This can develop not only their creativity but also make it easier, through direct observation, for them to internalize the knowledge we are trying to offer them.
Key objectives for inclusion
When we talk about sustainability, it immediately foresees the term inclusion. This is because when we work towards a sustainable world, we need to include in that same process the wider amount of people possible. Although our personal actions are important, they surely have a bigger impact when we are able to persuade other people to do the same. This is exactly what happens with sustainability: our singular actions will, in a long-term period, influence the environment, however if we work together as a community towards the same goals, the changes will be noticed sooner than later.
In our minds, inclusion is this but it is also much more. That is why we chose as our main target children with Congenital Hearing Loss. These kids are often put aside because they have a different way to perceive the world around them. However, for us that should not be an issue and they should be seen as totally capable agents of change. Because of this, our application will be completely adapted to children with this kind of condition. They should not be considered less just because of their hearing problem and our solution can work as a way to make them feel a part of something special.
Also, inclusion comes along with the terms tolerance and equality. When it comes to this, we chose to design our application’s characters as a representation of different races and disabilities, showing children that everyone is capable of producing change, no matter how they look from the outside. The most important part is the desire to produce change and if they have that, nothing else will matter.
Innovative character
There are possibly as many applications for kids to learn as there are for mere entertainment. Ideally, each application will be framed to match a certain interest and therefore the techniques and concepts behind them will differ in their level of engagement. Some will be way too overwhelming and full of knowledge, and some will focus mostly on the fun within. But there are not actually many applications out there seeking to keep the balance between education and fun while mixing the real world and computer-generated perceptual information.
If we focus mostly on education, how effective the outcomes are, depend on multiple factors. One of them is getting to connect with aspects that are meaningful for the users, in this case, in kids. With this in mind, we will take advantage of Augmented Reality technologies to translate knowledge, experience and intuitions into actions that will have a visual tacit effect on the real world. Our application will embark kids on an interactive learning through storytelling experience. Meaning that they will take part in the story while navigating a process of cathartic and reflective learning.
We rely on the role that reflection plays in education, and since the SDGs agenda is due in the near future, we will create an awareness of tacit knowledge experience that can be perceived in the present.
Moreover, and given that we are creating an inclusive experience that can be used by children with hearing loss disabilities, our application will be filled with sensory stimuli to suit their needs.
We concur with the view that the most significant learning frequently takes place during or after strong emotional events. Because of that, our intent is to frame an experience that will take the aspects mentioned before into consideration while involving both children and parents in it. As a result, this approach will encourage them to take a part towards a more sustainable way of living.
