The Bunny Brothers 

Math Challenge

Zhonghao Liang, 584395

Introduction

More math, more fun with the bunny brothers!

The Bunny Brothers - Math Challenge is an educational game for children (4-6 years old) to learn and train mathematics with Vuforia AR technology. It uses AR technology to enhance children's interest in learning math and to train their math skills through an interactive experience solving with basic math addition problems (Fig.1).

The Bunny Brothers is a set of two virtual characters (Momo and Mimi), originally designed by Johnny Zhonghao Liang.

Fig.1 Screenshots of The Bunny Brothers - Math Challenge’s gameplay

Behind the game

AR for early childhood education

Learning math can be a tedious and long process for most children. Basic numeracy is a very important skill for children. Improving children's math skills will improve their problem solving efficiency, increase their interest in learning math and help them to develop or increase their confidence in learning math. There are no shortcuts to improving numeracy skills, and it is important to train children’s skills consistently. However, at present, math education and training in Australia’s early childhood education is mainly in the form of quiz books. Even though some materials are based on games or associating with illustrations to optimize the variety of educational methods and to engage children's interest, children are less likely to be interested in learning and practicing with math because the physical education materials are not relatively interactive (Madanipour & Cohrssen 2020).

The Bunny Brothers - Math Challenge combines the rules of basic math addition with an interactive game format through AR technology to enhance children's interest in learning math and to effectively train their math addition skills.

The future of AR technology in education

There are reports that AR education is learner-based and that AR technology allows learners to explore a variety of interesting learning materials on their own. AR can give learners a special space where they feel like they are in the same place as other people or things. This sense of presence can reinforce students' interest in learning knowledge. Therefore, AR has great potential to develop learners' intuition. In addition immersive media like AR can give learners a sense of immersion, which is also a subjective feeling that one has in an integrated and realistic experience (Köse & Güner-Yildiz 2021).

Interface & application use case

Why AR?

Fig.2 User chooses the correct/wrong answers

The game uses AR technology combined with interesting 3D animations to attract children's attention and stimulate their interest in learning mathematics. During play, the 3D character models (Mimi/Momo) on Image Target provide positive/negative animated feedback if the user selects the right/wrong answer to the displayed math problem (Fig.2).

Use case storyboard

Fig.3 Use case storyboard

Development information

Unity

Fig.4 Screenshot of the Unity project

The Bunny Brothers - Math Challenge was developed using Unity (Editor version: 2022.1.7f1), developed by Unity Technologies, as the game engine for the main development. I used Unity to build the game's scenes and C# to write the core math problem logic and multiple interactions implemented with Vuforia AR. Many of the engine's features such as Lighting, Material, Animator, GUI etc. were also covered during the development of Unity (Fig.4).

Blender

Fig.5 Screenshot of the Blender project

Since the two fictional characters of The Bunny Brothers, Momo and Mimi, were originally designed by me, I used Blender (version 2.83) to do the 3D modeling, rigging, animation, and texture mapping of the characters. After building the characters in Blender, I exported them as fbx files and imported them into the Unity project (Fig.5).

Vuforia

I used Vuforia Engine 10.9 and its Image Target technology in combination with Unity's built-in features to implement the game's main interactions.

Adobe Photoshop/Illustrator

To achieve a unique visual style, I used Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator to complete the design of the Image Targets and various UI components.

Visual assets information

The bunny brothers

Fig.6 Renders of the bunny brothers

Momo and Mimi are two similar looking, cheerful and lively bunny characters.

Rigging & animation

Both Momo and Mimi's rigging and animations were designed and created in Blender, they have the same basic shape and rigging, but have different body movement animations.

Visual & graphic style

As the game is aimed at children, the overall visuals and UI design are child-oriented.

References

Köse, H & Güner-Yildiz, N 2021, 'Augmented reality (AR) as a learning material in special needs education', Education and Information Technologies, vol. 26, no. 2, pp. 1921-1936.

Madanipour, P & Cohrssen, C 2020, 'Augmented reality as a form of digital technology in early childhood education', Australasian Journal of Early Childhood, vol. 45, no. 1, pp. 5-13.

Appendix

• Screen recording video of The Bunny Brothers - Math Challenge

File path: \The Bunny Brothers - Download files\Other

• Unity development files

File path: \The Bunny Brothers - Download files\The Bunny Brothers - Unity Files

• Image Targets for AR interactions

File path: \The Bunny Brothers - Download files\Image Target

• Unity 2022.1 Tech Stream
• 2.83 LTS — blender.org
• SDK Download | Vuforia Developer Portal
• Adobe Creative Cloud | Details and products