Selfie with Mangalyaan

Hyderabad: A week before the Mangalyaan mission enters the orbit of Mars, city-based e-learning company Smartur has launched an augmented-reality app, which not only allows one to closely watch the spacecraft but also pose for a selfie with it.

The team at Smartur, who had earlier worked on 3D-learning models on maths, science and geography, came up with the idea a month ago, and had eight people working round-the-clock to develop it.

“The Mars mission, launched in November 2013, is a landmark project and most people aren’t really aware of its magnitude. In less than a year, the spacecraft will be covering 318 million km which is equivalent to 1,000 visits to the Moon and back,” says Neeraj Jewalkar founder of the company. “We are one of the few countries in the world, which has attempted a mission to the Mars and we have also achieved it in 1/10th of the cost of its US counterpart and while their mission took about five years to launch, ours was done in 15 months,” he adds.

And all of this is achieved through the technology called augmented reality. “Suppose a teacher had to show images of animals in the class, augmented reality would actually bring that animal inside the classroom. There is a basic 3D Smartur board which is inscribed with codes, colours and images, and once one views the board through their phones’ camera it shows a 3D spacecraft, ready to take off,” informs Neeraj.

Although as a country we are quite consumed with technology, our classrooms continue to remain untouched by it, and this is where Neeraj and his team want to strike a chord. Fifteen city schools are already using Smartur’s digital solutions and the Mangalyaan app is gaining popularity amongst the students