[{"content":{"text":"We sent a team to the 8th annual Augmented World Expo<\/a> (AWE 2017) last week in Santa Clara, CA. AWE 2017 is widely recognized as the largest augmented reality (AR) conference in the world. The team was excited to attend! Not only was CEO Jesse Schell<\/a> speaking, but we were exhibiting three of our experiences; one of which was nominated for an award!<\/p>Jesse\u2019s Talk<\/strong><\/p>Jesse spoke a few days into AWE about the growth and adoption of AR technology. His talk was called, \u201cUpdates From The Future<\/a>.\u201d You can see it below. Click here<\/a> to access his slides.<\/p>"},"id":"60bccd96-781e-4397-80fa-51ab0ce4b3fb","isHidden":false,"type":"textBlock"},{"content":{"url":"https:\/\/youtu.be\/hUyt4csFg-Y","caption":""},"id":"597dbee3-e9bf-4aaf-afd9-d2976262dd2c","isHidden":false,"type":"videoBlock"},{"content":{"text":"Jesse sees the potential of AR, but his talk highlighted how the adoption of it will be slower than many people had anticipated.<\/p>Our Exhibitions<\/strong><\/p>The team was at AWE 2017 showing three different experiences- Happy Atoms, Domino World, and SuperChem VR. Happy Atoms, our digital and physical chemistry modeling set, was the experience up for an Auggie Award in the category Best Game or Toy. (spoiler alert: big news at the end!)<\/p>The team had a large booth and plenty of room to show all the experiences.<\/p>\u201cIt seemed like we were the cool kids on the block,\u201d says team member and game designer Ryan Hall. \u201cAll the experiences showed really well. We had visitors come back to our booth to show others what we were exhibiting. Even one attendee said \u2018I haven\u2019t seen AR\/VR for education done like this before.\u2019\u201d<\/p>The exhibit hall, Ryan says, was full of designers and developers from all over the world.<\/p>Ryan continues, \u201cPeople really gravitated to Happy Atoms, but Domino World and SuperChem VR drew crowds as well.\u201d<\/p>"},"id":"2f43ea68-7e56-454a-9343-0459c7ad3be3","isHidden":false,"type":"textBlock"},{"content":{"location":"kirby","image":["file:\/\/AlYdDPlK7IrTViPY"],"src":"","alt":"","caption":"","link":"","ratio":"","crop":"false"},"id":"292d8550-d063-4fb4-976e-e19ba87c62c7","isHidden":false,"type":"imageBlock"},{"content":{"location":"kirby","image":["file:\/\/NvUR9cPVWcrs4wA8"],"src":"","alt":"","caption":"Header: booth with SuperChem VR on screen, picture 1: Domino World and Happy Atoms, picture 2: Happy Atoms in the foreground","link":"","ratio":"","crop":"false"},"id":"d9ffe7de-e150-41d7-b8e4-8dd59d867387","isHidden":false,"type":"imageBlock"},{"content":{"text":"The 8th Annual Auggie Awards<\/strong><\/p>The Auggie Awards was the recognition AWE gave to those experiences and projects that excelled in particular categories. First, each category was subject to a public online voting. Once that phase was done, the awards committee picked the top 8-10 of each category as finalists. Happy Atoms made the finalist phase in the Best Game or Toy<\/em> category.<\/p>At the award ceremony, there was a mixture of excitement, anxiety, and confidence among the team members. But, the hard work paid off- Happy Atoms won!<\/p>"},"id":"18675fb5-b949-4032-8b07-95563595b5bd","isHidden":false,"type":"textBlock"},{"content":{"location":"kirby","image":["file:\/\/mTAXodcFtYtSCVZn"],"src":"","alt":"","caption":"","link":"","ratio":"","crop":"false"},"id":"7ac7fe43-d4ae-4fcc-af72-aa5bf6f1df94","isHidden":false,"type":"imageBlock"},{"content":{"text":"Here\u2019s a video to see the rest of the Auggie Awards ceremony (The Best Toy or Game category starts around 18:08).<\/p>"},"id":"66e8806e-649e-49a7-beb7-12efb22185d3","isHidden":false,"type":"textBlock"},{"content":{"url":"https:\/\/youtu.be\/8-DQ5VrZBBI","caption":""},"id":"eb87cafc-4a80-42c1-b969-ae02116f7887","isHidden":false,"type":"videoBlock"}]