AR Elephants and Polar Bears Arrive at Techniquest Science Discovery Centre

Published: July 27, 2018

Techniquest, a science discovery centre in Cardiff Bay, operates exhibitions, shows and programmes intended to make science accessible to people throughout Wales. Thanks to the latest addition to their interactive experiences, their visitors will now be able to meet life-sized wild animals and immerse themselves in a breathtaking 3D world – using INDE’s cutting-edge Augmented Reality technology.

INDE's giant-screen AR platform installed at Techniquest

BroadcastAR, a custom large-screen AR platform built by INDE, places photo-realistic, true-size animals beside viewers – serving as a teleportation machine that instantly takes them to Africa and the Arctic. The Air, Land & Sea and Traveller AR experiences, originally created for National Geographic, allow visitors to observe animated 3D elephants, polar bears, leopards and other wild animals in an exceptionally high-quality digital “copy” of their natural habitat. The third AR package, Back to the Jurassic, gets people up-close and personal with life-sized dinosaurs.

Not only is the AR show suitable for all ages, but it also allows group interactions and features automatic image capturing, enabling people to share their experience with family members, friends and fellow visitors on-site and post-event, through social media.

Traveller large-screen Augmented Reality experience by INDE

Dan Ketteringham, Marketing Officer of Techniquest said: “It’s been an absolute pleasure working on this project with the team at INDE. We couldn’t be happier with the augmented reality exhibit, which gives our visitors an entirely new and exciting experience; the feedback we’ve had has been overwhelmingly positive.”

“Unlike almost any medium before it, AR affords educational institutions the chance to recreate entire representations of objects, characters, places and more, allowing them to offer truly immersive spaces that give group experience, collective participation and more at the touch of a button,” said Alex Poulson, CEO of INDE.

With 120 hands-on interactive exhibits, a science theatre, planetarium and a lab, Techniquest is the UK’s longest-established science centre, with a mission to embed science in Welsh culture through interactive engagement.