A mobile application, games and illustrations for an educational trail 4.0

The Miners' Garden is a place of relaxation and observation open to all. The pond and its forest path offer you a moment out of time in the heart of a privileged place for the fauna and flora.

The starting point?

To accompany the creation of the pond and the forest trail, the cultural association of the Presta Asphalt Mines (ACMAP) wanted to create a new kind of educational trail: Combining an experience that is both in harmony with the place, using wood and "real" games to manipulate with these hands and at the same time innovative with interactive media on tablet or smartphone.

Our solution?

For the digital part, the decision was made to start with an experience based on our Totemi solution, allowing us to create interactive and digital paths. We decided to use a playful approach, whose visual universe is reminiscent of the code of independent video games. The goal was to combine a "gamified" counterpart with a fairly rigorous didactic approach. We collaborated with Elodie Margraf, biologist, who designed the structure and content of the course.

How to make the course?

You can visit the website of Les Mines d'asphaltes to get all the practical information: https: //www.mines-asphalte.ch/jardin-des-mineurs. For an optimal family experience, we recommend that you rent the tablet and the explorer's bag at the reception desk.

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Extended reality and Zen spirit

Most people enjoy being in nature to relax and recharge. The use of digital devices may seem to be in opposition to this precept. Our goal was not to bring a bias, but rather to understand what each tool can bring to the user experience.

That's why a digital contribution can make this incredibly rich and complex world visible and understandable, while keeping the zen spirit of nature.

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Mascot animals

Biotopes like the Miners' Garden can attract dozens of new species.... But most of them are difficult to observe. That's why we've decided to start with illustrations of these species and integrate them into our information panels, games and animations.

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Illustration, animation and rotoscoping

The challenge around the animation was to respect all the precision and finesse of the bird animations in flight, without having to illustrate all the key images for each species. We decided to reconcile the illustrative work for the scenery and techniques close to rotoscoping by diverting flights of birds from video sequences, in order to have their silhouette in flight. We then used After Effect to integrate the silhouettes in a backlight effect with the rest of the set and simulating an observation through binoculars.