My meeting with Professor Ault provided some helpful feedback on other routes to take a look at and new things to consider about my project and what I should be researching. On the research side for this week, following a suggestion from Professor Ault, I looked into web based AR. Web AR is augmented reality that is held within a web page rather than in an application and from my understanding can be accessed by navigating to the web URL and then using the camera in your smart device to experience the AR through the web. It is worth noting that during our current climate this is a tool that is starting to be utilized a bit more by companies due to many people not being able to go out to a store in person or other places. This seems like a step in the right direction when thinking about my goals for my project. Lego is a product that is easily accessible to many different people regardless of their age and skill level, therefore the technology to be coupled with it should reflect that, methinks. By choosing the web AR route over using a specific application allows for more people to have ease of access should they want to try experiencing mixed reality with Lego.
Another think I reflected on after my discussion last week was in part the essence of Lego. Lego is a tool that has limitless possibilities and really allows the user to experience it in their own way should they choose to. Sets have instructions on how to build something but ultimately it is up to the user what they want to do with the pieces presented. Looking at Lego’s other digital ventures, this aspect isn’t as reflected in their play and features. For the most part they are much more linear compared to the physical toy. There is one exception to this however and that would be Lego worlds. Lego Worlds was a game developed in 2017 and while it had open environments with specific objectives, the thing that I found most interesting about it was this particular games version of free play. free play in this game is rather different than from other Lego games, there is a lot more freedom for the player to do what they want in these environments. They can build their own minifigure using any of the pieces in the game, you can free build anything and anywhere you want which really reflects part of the core appeal of Lego. This is something that I think would be most interesting to explore not just from a technical standpoint but also a social one as well and see how I could further improve on that and help bridge that disconnect between the digital medium and the physical one.