Munch Named As Finalist In Digital Catapult Awards

We are thrilled that MunchMunch, the immersive arts platform for schools, has been nominated as one of three finalists in the ‘Responsible & Ethical Tech Pioneer’ category at the Digital Catapult Awards 2021.

Digital Catapult is the UK’s leading advanced digital technology centre, and one of the loudest and most important voices in supporting and promoting the UK tech industry. They identified Arcade as a future leader as early as 2018, appointing us to their Augmentor programme that year, and have continued to be supportive advocates for us and the entire immersive landscape in the UK.

In early 2020 we were invited to pitch for an incredibly exciting project in which the winning SME would partner with Digital Catapult and Norway’s Munch Museum to create a new immersive tool for schools inspired by the works and artistic philosophies of iconic artist Edvard Munch.

The result was MunchMunch, a fun, exciting creative platform designed for kids aged 7-11 to express themselves in entirely new ways. With MunchMunch, they can take their creations from 2D paper into 3D augmented reality and engage with the physical spaces around them in ways that, we think, Edvard Munch himself would have approved.

The awards ceremony is on November 17th, and you can find out more about the Digital Catapult Awards hier.

Read The Case Study

MUNCHMUNCH

MunchMunch toegevoegd aan Digital Catapult Success Stories

MunchMunch, de leuke, innovatieve creativiteitstool die de artistieke filosofieën van Edvard Munch viert, werd ontwikkeld door Arcade in samenwerking met MUNCH en Digital Catapult. Ahead of its launch later this year, Digital Catapult – the UK’s leading advanced digital technology innovation centre – has added a comprehensive case study to its ‘Success Stories’ pages.

Lees de case study hier, of om meer te weten te komen en te zien wat meeslepende technologieën voor u kunnen betekenen kom in contact.

MunchMunch shortlisted for Art Explora Award

MunchMunch, the innovative creativity platform for school children, has been shortlisted as one of 30 potential winners of the hugely prestigious Art Explora Award.

Created in partnership with Oslo’s Munch Museum and Digital Catapult, MunchMunch is a creative and entertaining mobile application for Norwegian school children, aged between 9-11. It will inspire students to engage with Munch’s unique way of thinking and creating, by combining analogue and digital elements. The experience will consist of a digital tutorial, followed by an analogue drawing exercise. By transferring the drawing into an AR view, the user is able to place the drawing in their own surroundings and to continue working on its expressions with effects only made possible by digital means.

The award ceremony and announcement of the winning projects will take place on December 3rd. Learn more about Art Explora and tune in for the awards here: https://artexplora.org/en/the-2020-edition-of-the-art-explora-academie-des-beaux-arts-european-award/

The Arcade: A school trip with a difference!

How do you go on a school trip when you can't go to school?

National Historic Ships UK is one of the heritage organisations to take advantage of a recent offer we made to fellow Heritage Alliance members of creating a free virtual gallery, part of our efforts to support the sector during lockdown. They are based at the Maritime Museum in Greenwich, London, so it was fitting that we approached the school physically closest to them, Meridian Primary School, to offer their pupils the opportunity to go on a school trip with a difference.

Following close liaison and planning with the Year 4 teacher, Jeff Mason, a detailed note was circulated explaining how the kids could access the National Historic Ships exhibition in our gallery space, The Arcade. It is built on Mozilla Hubs, which we chose because unlike most VR platforms it is available to anyone with a web browser, a critical consideration for any virtual experience designed for mass audiences, as The Arcade very much is.

Then it was time to open the doors and welcome the kids in! Pandas, foxes, robots and all sorts of other characters popped up as they chose their avatars and came into the gallery. This was the first time many of them had been in direct contact with each other for many months, since lockdown began, and they quickly delighted in moving around the gallery and chatting away to each other. We left them to discover the chat functionality, and then how to bring 3D emojis into the space, which they did within moments.

Jeff himself was highly visible as a bright yellow floating robot, and after giving them time to enjoy themselves exploring the gallery together, asked his pupils to engage with the National Historic Ships photography exhibition itself. They looked at the photographs and chose their favourites, took a few minutes to sketch them and imagined what it might be like to sail on them.

But mostly they just had fun! They hadn’t been able to see each other for months, and through the magic of this virtual experience they were brought back together again. Since the Year 4 trip, the other classes at Meridian that have not been able to return to school have also visited the gallery. Years 2, 3 and 5 all enjoyed their own trips, and came together in The Arcade. This was immersive technology for real purpose, and it was such a pleasure to be a part of it.

Learn more about The Arcade and other virtual experiences

Kom in contact