Dinosaurs & Robots

Aim

Dinosaurs and Robots is an innovative augmented reality experience which aims to bring ideas about dinosaurs and robots to life and shape the cultural heritage sector for the 21st century. Combining storytelling with augmented and mixed reality, Dinosaurs and Robots will create two multi-sensory worlds, bringing their namesakes to life.

Summary

This ambitious, multi-stakeholder project brings to life two separate experiences – Dinosaurs and Robots – inviting multi-generational audiences into content rich immersive environments. It combines mixed reality and immersive storytelling with research-led audience analysis to transform the traditional museum experience into a rich encounter where objects come to life and the audience can interact with them in new and exciting ways.
With leading expertise from the Science Museum Group and the Natural History Museum, the consortium set out to build portable sets to transport Dinosaurs and Robots as ‘pop-up’ experiences to audiences in shopping centres, in partnership with retail group Intu. To reach audiences at home, the consortium created download-at-home apps distributed by Sky and Magic Leap.
John Cassy, Factory 42 Chief Executive, said: “For millions of visitors each year a visit to the Natural History Museum or Science Museum is not complete without an encounter with robots or dinosaurs. Thanks to the magic of technology and the minds of some brilliant technologists, creatives and scientists, audiences will soon be able to see, smell, hear and touch robots and dinosaurs as part of a group of family or friends. Factory 42 is thrilled to have assembled and now be leading this world-class consortium as we set out to break new ground and reimagine how a trip to a museum will entertain and inform visitors in the future.”

Target Audience

Tourists and the tourism industry
School groups and education stakeholders
Museum visitors and the general public
Shopping centres
Families, children and young teenagers

Outcome

The Dinosaurs and Robots consortium launched a mixed reality experience in a shopping centre in Gateshead before ‘lock down’ commenced, which gained a very positive response. The onset of COVID-19 meant the museum experience has not been able to come to fruition, with shared headsets and crowds of people breaching social distancing rules and health recommendations. Instead, the consortium adapted to deliver a single location based experience modelled on a combined Dinosaurs and Robots narrative, to be launched later in 2021.
As well as this, the consortium is deploying the experience into mobile learning apps, focussing on students aged 14 and under. The apps ‘My Dinosaur Mission AR’ and ‘My Robot Mission AR’ use innovative approaches to engage hard to reach groups in STEM, taking a gender neutral approach and using skeletal tracking support for enhanced, realistic interaction. The apps have been made in close collaboration with the museum partners and are now available for download through iOS and Android stores.

Contact

Alyssa Bonic

Applications

Content – AR, Content – MR, Content – theatre, film & video, Content – special effects, Content – games & gaming, Content – animation & graphics, Tech – VR/AR headsets, Infrastructure – 5g, Digital – data & analytics