To Infinity and Beyond: Fostering Collaboration and Community to Inspire Children to Create in Augmented Reality, Archika Dogra , UG '24 & Alison Lee, UG '24 (D13A9E4B)
Capybara is a mobile application that empowers children to express themselves by programming their own augmented reality (AR) character in the form of a capybara. Our research extended the prototype of Capybara with new immersive multiplayer and remixing functionalities, with the goal of encouraging people to collaborate and gain inspiration from each other. Concretely, users were enabled to interact with a second user's character and remix (view, copy, and modify) that second character’s code within their own character. To assess our extension, we conducted study sessions across fifteen participants aged 11-15 from Central New Jersey. We found that children learned programming concepts visually, by running other character's programs, and that children reported interest and excitement at the concept of multiplayer, most notably at the prospect of playing Capybara with their friends. Our findings also indicated that remixing fosters a sense of “infinite” exploration where children encounter novel ideas through another character's code. However, we recognize potential challenges such as the emergence of creative echo chambers due to realistic social and geographic limitations inherent in AR. Furthermore, our study underscores that social interaction in AR is at the forefront for how children desire to collaborate in Capybara, and therefore educational value should revolve around these interactions. In addition, we recommend examining strong incentives and rewards to motivate users to share their code. Overall, these findings drive understanding about how children want to create, learn, and interact in the world of AR.