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May 3, 2019
Sharing the magic of AR/VR app Mixiply at NZ Games Festival
Last month we hosted a Mixiply workshop for kids at Capital E in Wellington, part of the NZ Games Festival 2019.
Mixiply is a platform for creating AR/VR games and apps. It’s a product of the Innovation Lab, in close collaboration with the MiniDevs of Newlands Intermediate.
Read more about the MiniDevs and our collaboration.
The event was one of the first outings of the Mixiply platform, currently in beta, and it was super-exciting to see kids coding, learning and playing with the platform – and having a lot of fun!
Enthralled kids learning how to code #AR! Thanks @CapitalENZ for hosting the #nzgf19 workshop run by @mixiply @knowclue @ThetaNet & @nzgamesfest 😁 pic.twitter.com/xXtsES9koG — Dr Bee (@driedfrog) April 23, 2019
In keeping with the ethos of our collaboration, the workshop was jointly run by Jim and Ryan from our innovation lab with teacher Marianne and MiniDev students Yahia and Tennyson.
After an introduction to Mixiply, the kids got busy coding, remixing and playing – creating a game where you throw rubber ducks at a piñata ball until it breaks.
With some prebuilt code elements, workshop participants quickly took to the remixing, seeing what happens if you changed the elements – swapping the ducks out for sheep, the balls for an emoji or even a face (exploding faces, cool!) and changing the numbers of balls.
The joy of seeing yourself in a game was also evident:
What others have said about the MiniDevs and Mixiply
Real world software changing students’ career outlooks – Education Gazette
You’re Not In 2006 Anymore, Toto: The Future Of Education – Anna Lim, Microsoft
Heena Sharma, one of the MiniDevs, talks about their goal in creating Mixiply:
Our aim is to prove that harnessing the creativity of kids is the key to preparing for the real world. Kids have the ability to achieve great things when given the freedom to explore. We believe Mixiply is a tool that can help that happen in school. Users can express their creativity by designing and developing their own content for virtual and augmented reality.
What’s next for Mixiply?
The MiniDevs are celebrating their work and giving demos of current projects at a launch event in Wellington later this month. We’re also showcasing Mixiply at the 2019 STEAM Education Summit.