
Urban API: Uni Voice
Uni voice is an interactive feedback system built for Plymouth University. Its aim is to make it easier for student’s voices to be heard in a fresh and exciting manner, by creating a connection between the virtual and physical world.
It is built using Unity and Vuforia to create an augmented reality app. It uses the QR codes as an AR target. Live Twitter data is given a sentiment score using Node-Red and used to dynamically change the size of buildings on the map.
Our Inspirations were:
Peronio: an AR pop-up book built with Unity and Vuforia; much like our own project.Read More…
Monsters Multiplayer AR board game – uses Vuforia smart terrian to build a game board that includes physical objects as part of the game board. Read More…
Central Park – Listen To The Light: an interactive location-aware album that changes based on where you walk. Read More
Design Process
Planning and low-fidelity prototypes

First map that uses images with Vuforia to play sounds.
To start with, we used images that Vuforia would recognise and use to replay sounds. We later replaced these with QR codes.

concept of map with building sizes influenced by Twitter data.
Final Designs/High-fidelity prototypes

QR codes on the map.

Concept of 3D building on the physical map.
Using Blender camera tracking, I was able to quickly create a concept of how the 3D AR buildings would look on the physical map.

Uni Voice in action

Jack demonstrating the AR app in action.

I created the logo in Illustrator as an identity for our project.
Future Improvements
- Potential for further expansion such as having more ‘points’ on the map.
- live Twitter updates with Text-To-Speech technology (which we simulated with pre-recorded Text-to-speech software).
- Switch out QR codes for alternatives, possibly using NFC tags under the map or the numbers on the map.
Evaluation & Feedback
We used an online feedback system to both gather first-hand research on students views of how the University handles feedback, and another on feedback from our project to help us measure our influence and impact on the university.
See it here: University Voice Survey
Resources
Unity • Vuforia • CrazyBump • Node-Red • Stellarsurvey