Pirates, Firemen and Ninjas: Enhancing a location aware travel training tool by Nick Shopland.

1. Pirates, Firemen and Ninjas:
Enhancing a location aware travel
training tool
Maria Saridaki Nick Shopland
New Technologies Laboratory in Interactive Systems Research
Communication, Education and Group, School of Science &
the Mass Media Technology
University of Athens Nottingham Trent University

2. Routemate
• Accessible location based
travel training app
• to help people with
intellectual disabilities and
other physical disabilities
to learn simple routes
• Android application and
desktop console

3. RECALL
Reconnecting Excluded Communities
and Lifelong Learning
• Partnership from UK, Bulgaria,
Romania & Greece
• Development split into 3 phases
– Plan
– Use
– Challenge
• Partners conducted testing for each phase, followed
by piloting

5. Planning

7. Usage

8. Routemate - Challenge mode
• Goal is to improve learners’ cognitive map
formation
• Challenge mode seeks to bring more gaming
approaches to the interaction between the
user and the device, by adding a number of
gaming elements to the standard use mode
– As landmarks approach, RouteMate challenges the
user to select the next key landmark from three of
the pictures with which they themselves have
added to personalized their route

9. Gamification of travel training
• Extend challenges to the whole travel training
process
– Develop scenarios that enhance travel training sessions
– Provide additional icons (e.g. treasure, jewels, useful
items) which can be added as waypoint indicators
– Alternative interactions available as waypoints are
encountered
The goal is to make the travel training process playful

10. Routemate - Challenge mode scenarios
Extending the landmark style and interactions in
different ways, and using them to scaffold
different phases of use of the app. These
activities are proposed to be:
• Pirates – a sequential treasure hunt - associated
with route planning and creation activities
• Ninjas – a “scavenger hunt” to find as many items
as possible - associated with using route
• Firemen - find fires and put them out - associated
with developing independence / confidence (on a
particular route

11. Challenge Mode – Games Based
Learning
To teach/reinforce the concept of
maps and route learning, a games
approach has been adopted that:
• Allows students to insert
different icons to waypoints in
planning mode (e.g., treasure)
• The student is then challenged
to find this treasure in the real
world, using game play around
treasure hunts, or pirates, for
example.
• Promotes the connection
between the map and the real
world

12. The Emerald Sword
and the Route
Ninjas
• You are Super Ninjas ready to find the lost jewels of the
emerald sword! Where is the next jewel hidden?
Follow the map carefully!
• Be careful, Evil Samurai Engines might block your way
and guide you away from the jewels. Mind your steps
young Ninja and always follow the pedestrian footsteps
of the great elder ninjas before you!
May all Green Traffic Lights guide your way!

13. Route of the Pedestrian
Pirates
Follow the blue marks on
the mystical map and be
first to the location of
the super secret treasure.
Be careful though, while
roving the seas, remember
to watch for the green
lights and guard against
the hungry sharks that
await you and your crew!

14. Gaming elements per piloting site
• Greek piloting site used locative gamified
scavenger hunt scenarios, using premade
narratives with pirates and ninjas.
• Users tried to find the next spot in order to
achieve their final goal and win the
game, alone or collaborate in teams
• The entire process was assisted with stickers
and tags in order to achieve goals and provide
feedback to the users

18. Bulgaria
• Bulgarian piloting sites, user’s age varied from 26
to 68 and they face visual and hearing
impairments, mobility impairments and/or mild
intellectual disability.
• They used a scavenger hunt gamified approach.
• Quoting the researchers “the facilitator said to
the user that today’s session will be as a game -
to find the "treasure" at the end point. If the user
completed the tasks successfully at the end of the
session he/she will receive a gift”.

20. UK
• UK piloting site did use a gamified approach
during the sessions, using very basic games
around map reading skills to locate places on
route. They mainly used very simple quiz e.g.
'what do you do at this building? - matching
words with pictures'.
• According to the researchers gaming factors
assisted with the engagement, route
comprehension as well as the memory of the
users.

23. Romania
• Romanian training site, the age range of their
users was between 11 to 39 years. They had no
prior experience with smartphones and
technology and had learning and intellectual
disabilities.
• The researchers stated that the did not have to
use any further game scenarios or scavenger hunt
game since their users perceived the Routemate
application per se as a game.
• They also expressed their interest in using
educational locative games for your users in the
near future.

26. • combining RouteMate, with game based
learning elements was successful
• the majority of the piloting sites integrated it in
their piloting sessions,
• while users were more than keen to immerse
themselves in the gaming scenario.
• All piloting sites were willing to use educational
locative games for their users in the near future
• useful framework for motivational and
independent route learning for users with a
range of different disabilities.

27. Thank you for listening
Maria Saridaki msaridaki@gmail.com
Nick Shopland nicholas.shopland@ntu.ac.uk
http://recall-project.eu/

28. http://routemate.isrg.org.uk
This site will:
• Register an interest in being kept
informed of Route Mate releases
• Give access to the Android app
and inform users of updates.
• Support the app beyond the
lifetime of the RECALL project.
• Provide a place where strategies
and experiences can be shared.
• Enable reporting of bugs and
other issues that you may
encounter.