Image: Bomboman/Dreamstime.com
Paul Wilkinson, a technology consultant specialising in construction collaboration tools, on the latest gaming phenomenon sweeping the globe.
We’ve heard quite a lot recently about augmented reality (AR), and this can be a difficult concept to explain.
Pokemon Go is a perfect example of how a smartphone’s maps and real world view can provide a backdrop to added digital information, and be interactive.
It’s not a new concept: at a Digital Futures event in 2011, I tested an AR game created by a Lancaster University lecturer to teach children (early stage surveyors, maybe?) about latitude and longitude. Using GPS smartphones, if kids navigated successfully to particular locations they could capture virtual dinosaurs.
Pokemon Go is using real-life buildings and other landmarks as locations for players to interact with the game, though, sadly, I doubt avid players will pay much attention to the buildings themselves. Some people have reportedly been injured as a result of being so immersed in Pokemon Go that they’ve tripped or bumped into things.
I spoke to the parent of one user, and she was disappointed that the objective was to capture Pokemon characters and then engage in battles: “Why couldn’t they make or build something, instead of fighting each other?” she lamented.
At least Pokemon Go challenges game-playing couch potatoes to get off their backsides, go out into the open air, and potentially meet other players in real life, rather than doing it virtually. It therefore has a strong social element to it – like the location-based app FourSquare that in turn spawned Swarm (which I often use with Twitter for checking-in at places with the #ukbimcrew and others).
But let’s not forget that we already have popular games with strong social, creative and construction themes, from forging empires to building cities in Minecraft.
It may not be AR or on a smartphone, but if your kids want to try their hand at restoring Battersea Power Station, for example, then the CIOB’s Craft your Future Minecraft-based platform helps young learners tackle many construction challenges.
Paul Wilkinson blogs at www.pwcom.co.uk
So…. What can Construction Learn? This could have been a very interesting and thought provoking article if it had answered the title.
Hi James. Sorry your felt I didn’t answer the question.
Part of my answer was that PokemonGo is about AR – about geolocating the user in a combination of real world and computer-generated data. I meet many construction folk who don’t understand what AR is – PokemonGo is a topical example.
A second point was about the (to me) unfortunate purpose of players meeting up to fight. Personally, I would prefer a game or virtual world (like Second Life, for example) where players rendezvous to collaborate and do something positive (I will refrain from going on about how too much construction is adversarial already!).
And third, I pointed out there are perhaps more “constructive” (sic) games to learn from – and cited the CIOB’s Minecraft initiative.
Perhaps, ultimately, there isn’t actually a lot for construction to learn from PokemonGo. If you think there is (what did I miss?), I’d be interested to hear it.