Seneca Village

Unearthing the Past: An Immersive AR Tour of Seneca Village

As a developer passionate about education, I'm always exploring innovative ways to make learning interactive and engaging. My latest AR project aims to transport users back in time to the early 19th century world of Seneca Village - a predominantly African-American community that existed in what is now New York City's iconic Central Park.

Leveraging geofencing and GPS tagging, the app overlays a historical map and prompts you to follow virtual footprints to designated points of interest across the park's landscape. As you traverse these coordinates, audio narration sets the scene with rich context and period narratives penned from residents' perspectives.

The sense of presence is amplified as you scan QR codes posted near real-world signage throughout Central Park. These act as triggers to render and anchor digital buildings recreating the very homes and community spaces that covered this area over 150 years ago.

Archival images and mobile augmentation meld holistically to bridge the divide between past and present. Suddenly the gap feels much narrower as you virtually wander the streets of this long-erased yet culturally significant settlement.

Developing methods for crafting impactful AR curricula has involved overcoming challenges such as optimizing object rendering and establishing intuitive user flows. But the potential to enhance public understanding and appreciation of underrepresented histories is deeply motivating.

As this project progresses, I'm excited to expand functionality and research efficacy of AR learning in terms of knowledge retention. I look forward to sharing new developments and insights as we collectively work to realize emerging technology's power to enrich historical education and inclusivity.