A design team organised by Deakin University’s IDeEA lab research group has achieved national success with their mobile app that turns tree data into a game encouraging users to connect with the environment
Their prototype TreeMate app was the STEM Hack runner up and received an Innovation Hack honourable mention at the 2017 national and international GovHack awards. This success followed on from two awards in the Victorian GovHack competition.
GovHack is an annual hackathon that runs in Australia and New Zealand. Participants have 46 hours to create innovative new products using the open data published by government bodies.
On the Deakin team were Anastasia Globa and Rui Wang from the University’s IDeEA lab – which stands for Interdisciplinary Design environments for Engineering and Architecture – Sergey Maximov (a developer with Deakin Library) and Cen Wang.
Based in the School of Architecture and Built Environment, Deakin’s IDeEA lab provides a home base for staff with expertise in digital technology and aims to provide multiple proof-of-concept and pilot studies that can underpin larger funded research projects within Deakin and externally with industry.
‘Local governments in Victoria provide detailed information of hundreds of thousands of trees,’ Dr Globa explains.
‘This kind of data is not only a good resource for people to learn about the species, but also a great opportunity to encourage people to get a better connection with the environment and the community.
‘Our project, TreeMate, is an innovative mobile app based on tree data provided by the City of Wyndham and the City of Melbourne.
‘We also take Victorian climate data which provides solar exposure and rainfall information.’
The team have turned this information into a game where people ‘collect’ trees in their neighbourhood, learning about each tree as they go. An abstract 3D game object represents each tree, based on the data for the corresponding tree family. Players can learn things like the common and scientific name of the tree, its age and life expectancy, as well as the amount of sun and water it has received. People can also leave comments about specific trees for other users.
Dr Globa says it’s all about getting people to engage with our environment.
‘We hope this game will encourage people to pay more attention and be more connected to our environment.’
Although still in its prototype stage, Dr Globa says TreeMate is already attracting interest from local government.
You can see TreeMate in action on YouTube.