Published: Friday, 12th May 2023
Families and children are being invited to become ‘virtual testers’ to help develop a new Augmented Reality (AR) Trail to help protect Cannock Chase.
The Community Testing Day will be held on Saturday 20 May at Marquis Drive Visitor’s Centre on Cannock Chase and will provide an opportunity for people to test a new virtual trail and collect the new Chase Creatures.
The Chase Creatures Trail is a short route around Marquis Drive where people will meet some friendly characters. Each Chase Creature represents one of the messages in the Cannock Chase Code.
The Chase Creatures AR Test Challenge is available on the Cannock Chase Can App and forms part of a new interactive health and wellbeing offer. Users will need to collect all 12 characters to complete the challenge. Full instructions on how to take part will be given on the day of the event.
The characters have been designed by local schoolchildren working alongside professional artists and the Cannock Chase Special Area of Conservation (SAC) Partnership. The Partnership is working to protect and enhance the Special Area of Conservation (SAC) and wider Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) through education, conservation and ecological focused projects.
Students from South Staffordshire College have provided the voiceovers which bring to life the characters. The aim of the project is to raise awareness and appreciation of the special and unique qualities found on Cannock Chase, and how to protect it for future generations.
Louise Rose, Chair of Cannock Chase Cultural Education Partnership, said: “We are really excited to launch the testing stage of this challenge. We are inviting local families, schools and community groups to experience the virtual wonders and test the challenge.
“As we are using cutting edge technology, we need to assess certain elements of the challenge such as phone coverage, signals and ease of collection. Feedback will be used to improve the challenge before its officially released in the summer”.
Kinga Niedzinska, Cannock Chase SAC Partnership Engagement Officer, said: “The Chase Creatures project is the future of protecting Cannock Chase together, through a fun and interactive experience. I have been so lucky to work with numerous local schools and such amazing Partners in order to make this unique and creative challenge come to life. This project will raise awareness of how special and fragile Cannock Chase is, and how important it is for us all to work together in protecting the Special Area of Conservation and wider Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.”
This initiative has been funded by the Cannock Chase Special Area of Conservation (SAC) Partnership and Cannock Chase Cultural Education Partnership and supports the wider Cannock Chase Can programme.
For further information about this ‘Community Testing Day’ email cannockchasecan@cannockchasedc.gov.uk or visit https://creativechase.co.uk/chase-creatures/ to download the instructions.