RSA'S ROAD SAFETY METAVERSE
TYPE & TECH Educational Virtual Learning Environment, WebGL, VR
CLIENT Road Safety Authority
Shifting gear from ‘in-school’ to ‘at home’
The COVID-19 pandemic forced society to make significant lifestyle adjustments. For the Irish Road Safety Authority (RSA), this meant their educational focus was to shift gear from ‘in-school’ to ‘at home’, with learning resources distributed online to provide a safe and engaging remote learning environment for all students.
In collaboration with BBDO, Solarflare created a metaverse for road safety learning called ‘RSA Core’, as a means to harness innovative technology. Accessible through the browser the remote learning portal allows both RSA presenters and students to be virtually together whilst physically apart. Cast as avatars, the users are fully immersed and engaged within the 3D event space. Full with hosted RSA learning materials, such as presentations, videos, and animations, the content is tailored to certain age demographics and ready for a wide range of learning content to be taught.
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“I finally got to hang out with my friends again after months apart”
– Jacob O’Sullivan, Student
How we hacked it
Built in Mozilla Hubs, the 360 immersive environments with added spatial audio allowed RSA to immerse their students in stylistically bold colourful spaces with fun creative features like 3D objects and animated scenery, brilliant for younger audiences. Their attention fully engaged with awe and wonder, RSA is able to promote good road safety behaviour in a safe and impactful road education environment.
Accessed through an online browser, students are able to join remotely. With the teacher providing a secure web link, the RSA NRSES Presenter joins them virtually, guiding them through the experience.
In the classroom, the teacher is able to display this interactive space on the screen, while the RSA NRSES Presenters cast in as an avatar.
For those who have access, students and teachers can also jump in on mobile and Oculus headsets.
Buckle up and schedule a class
By using Mozilla Hub’s open-source platform, we were able to create a bespoke system solution that enabled Presenters to ‘schedule’ their classroom experience. We did this by creating a unique Admin Dashboard, giving them the option to:
- Book a room
- Select age group, where suitable learning criteria would populate the environment.
- Populate representations & Real-Time statistics
- Email notifications for secure links to system
From the beautiful Irish coastline and busy city streets to a themed “Seatbelt Sheriff” land the Virtual Learning experience consists of six different environments – all connected by an ‘RSA Core’.
Take a sneak at some of the following Virtual Learning experiences we created:
A 3D road safety adventure
Made available online via invite across multiple platforms, the launch of The Learning Portal has proved extremely popular with students, allowing RSA to reach more schools than ever before, with it even being booked out until the end of the year. Whether it’s desktop browser, tablet or mobile we even extended the mass appeal to virtual reality, truly allowing users to be immersed into the 3D road safety experience.
Back-to-school
In line with the announcement of the fine for failing to stop at a school warden sign, doubling, RSA revealed its new online Learning Portal on August 23rd, 2022. Alongside An Garda Síochána, the back-to-school campaign aimed to call on drivers to watch out for children as they return to school. Since it’s launch, it’s been adopted by the Irish national primary and secondary school curriculum.
Creating noise across the media in Ireland, the platform has been featured in…
RTE One O’Clock News, Virgin One: News at 12:30, The Irish Times, Irish Mirror, Irish Examiner, Joe, Fm104, Cork Safety Alerts, Tipperary Live, Midwest Radio, Dublin People, Highland Radio and Dublin’s Q102.
The Institute of Creative Advertising and Design Awards | User Experience for Advertising, Silver Award. Creative Innovation, Silver Award. Digital Experience, Bronze Award.
The Webby Awards, People’s Voice | General Metaverse Experiences: Public Service & Activism, Nominated.
12th Lovie Awards Winner | Metaverse Individual: Weird & Experimental, Bronze Award.
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