Social AR Concept

Starting at a new school can be both exciting and intimidating. As new students explore campus, they encounter numerous locations, each with its own purpose and atmosphere. Reactions bridges the gap between physical spaces and emotional responses using augmented reality. By placing virtual emoji reactions at specific locations, the project creates a shared emotional map where new students can see how others have responded to different spaces, creating instant connections through shared experiences. Unlike many AR experiences that isolate users, Reactions is designed to complement and enhance real-world social interactions.

Key Features

• Emotional Landmarks: AR emojis placed at meaningful campus locations like the cafeteria (❤️), Bloomberg Center (😃), and sunset viewing spots (🌅)
• Shared Experience: Creates community through collectively mapped emotional responses visible to all users
• Campus Discovery: Encourages exploration of the entire campus through distributed emoji locations
• Social Icebreaker: Provides conversation starters for new students exploring campus together
• Evolving Map: Continuously growing emotional landscape as more users add their own reactions

Technical Implementation

Reactions is built using Unity AR Foundation with Google Geospatial API for precise real-world positioning. The system uses persistent cloud anchors to ensure emoji reactions remain accurately placed at their designated campus locations across multiple user sessions. Real-time synchronization through Firebase enables shared experiences, while location-based triggers notify users when they approach areas with existing reactions. The app features cross-platform compatibility for iOS and Android, with optimized rendering for smooth AR performance on mobile devices.