Arility Safety Education

Arility is a fantastic, easy-to-use augmented reality education app for kids to learn road safety. The application downloads fairly quickly and takes up a rather large space at nearly 800MB. The programme draws you in quickly with a ‘Try it out now’ button which then checks to see that you have printed out the start sheet, which is very straightforward and consists of navigating from the marker button to the developer web site, downloading the PDF file of your choice in size and printing it off. 

To start the first test a child has to answer a ‘pre-question about crossing the road. Then the user can point the camera at the printed marker, which is a Arility logo and the three dimensional screen appears on the device. The scene can then be viewed at any angle and changes on the device being moved around the paper marker, depending on your angle of view it is possible to view inside the bus of the first scene and look at the driver and passengers seated. When the scenario starts you can see the bus slowing down and stopping at the bus stop, the users chosen avatar alights from the bus onto the pavement. From this point the user has a choice, related to the ‘pre-questions’ about where the avatar should go, for example should they cross behind the bus, in front of the bus or walk to the nearest crossing. If the user chooses the wrong answer they are taken out of the scenario and told that they have taken the wrong choice with a rather large emoji sad face. When the user clicks the OK button the scene is displayed again ready for them to make another choice. When the child has chosen the correct answer, going to the nearest pedestrian crossing point they are again taken out of the scene and a congratulatory view is displayed with a clapping hand icon. When the child clicks on the OK button the next screen shows them some ‘Key Messages’ which are ‘Stop’, ‘Look’, ‘Listen’ and ‘Think’. Moving to the next screens the child has three questions to answer, if all correct they are awarded a badge and can move onto the next scenario.

For the teacher to set up a class a simple and intuitive procedure can be followed on screen with the main device. To get started the teacher has to simply fill out their name, the school name and their email where the reports can be sent to. With this done the teacher simply chooses the educational pack relevant for their age and stage, viewing the information pack about the scenario and presses the ‘Proceed’ button. This then starts the lesson and the teacher just needs to wait for the children to join the class. After the lesson the teacher will receive a complete PDF report of student outcomes. This report details all the lessons played during the lesson and marks each student answer. The teacher has three scenarios for each age category of 4-6 years to 7-11 years old.

This is a good attempt at joining Augmented Reality with an educational purpose. Certainly an application that could be considered for Primary Schools. I would however hope that in future developments that perhaps some of the consequences of the mistakes could be considered in the scenarios, kids can get the right answer but do they understand the consequences of getting the wrong answer? The questions are OK but perhaps they could be spoken to enhance the immersive feeling of the AR lesson. 

This is still early days for AR in education but this is a great first attempt and the enhancement of this application can only improve the chances of the programme being a ‘must go to’ for teachers and schools.

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You can download Arility Safety Education on your iOS or Android devices from the app stores. Download the Arility Safety Education app from the Apple App Store or the Google Play Store.