GuidAR Sartup. Launch of MVP and graduation from Noosphere Engineering School Rivne

In November 2022, it became a significant milestone for the GuidAR startup – final testing of the MVP (Minimum Viable Product), presentation to stakeholders, and graduation from the Engineering School. Read about the project's main features, its development path, and the team's ambitious (yet quite realistic) plans for the future in this article.

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The idea of the virtual gamified guide GuidAR was born in February 2021. This was followed by numerous brainstorming sessions, pitching, and idea validation. Work on the GuidAR project began with the creation of a technical assignment in May 2021.

WHAT IS «GUIDAR»

For regular users, GuidAR is an augmented reality quest that guides users through the iconic locations of the city of Rivne and the surrounding region. The startup's distinctive feature is its AR* platform, where residents and visitors of the city can explore Rivne while playing a game. GuidAR allows you to simultaneously play, enhance the city's tourist appeal, discover interesting historical facts, and create places for leisure activities!

For owners of hotel and restaurant businesses, as well as managers of historical and tourist sites, GuidAR is a tool for attracting customers and visitors. The secret and cool feature of GuidAR is the Fast Quest Implementation System (FQIS). FQIS was developed from scratch by the GuidAR team based on the UNITY engine in order to quickly add specific quests to the game to meet specific needs. In other words, street festivals, themed exhibitions, museums, or HoReCa establishments can quickly order quests from GuidAR to suit their needs, attracting new customers, improving the rating of their establishment, or diversifying the leisure activities of their visitors.

For example, the team prepared a ready-made quest for visitors to the International Blacksmithing Art Festival "Metal Heart of Ukraine." The event was scheduled to take place in Rivne in the summer of 2022 but was canceled for known reasons (due to russia's military aggression against Ukraine). However, when the event becomes possible, GuidAR's quests will undoubtedly capture the attention and interest of festival attendees. 
* AR or Augmented Reality is a term that refers to all projects aimed at augmenting reality with various virtual elements.

AT FRIENDLY GET-TOGETHERS. THE BIRTH OF AN IDEA. 

The participants of Noosphere Engineering School Rivne gathered as a group to discuss their joint vacation. They had two options: Kyiv and Lviv. Quite predictably, as everyone knows, in Lviv, you can take a walk in the old town, near the Town Hall, visit the High Castle Park, and buy lots of legendary chocolate. The capital, on the other hand, offers the Golden Gates, Khreshchatyk, Lavra...

"We asked ourselves what interesting things tourists could see in Rivne? This question was the seed of our project's vision," explains project coordinator Lyubov Shostak. "We encountered many related challenges! We identified two main ones: the first was the coronavirus pandemic, and the second was how people would transition from quarantine back to normal life. The solution didn't take long to emerge. To comply with all quarantine regulations, we will use a virtual guide to showcase all the interesting historical places. And to encourage people to take more walks, we created quests where users will receive valuable bonuses for completing them."

The project was named "GuidAR" (a guide in augmented reality), and within the team, they simply refer to it as "Gaida."
The team formed right away and remains stable to this day. The creators of Gaida were students of the National University of Water Management and Nature Use Oleksii Bubnov (Python Backend Developer), Andrii Melnychuk (C# Unity3D Developer), Andrii Nikolaienko (C# Unity3D Developer), Ivan Uksusov (Unity3D Artist) and Danylo Lagodniuk (C# Unity Developer). Liubov Shostak took on the role of project coordinator.

STEP BY STEP TOWARDS MVP

The development of GuidAR started in May 2021 with the creation of a well-founded technical assignment. In November of the same year, the team was designing the interface and commencing the development of models, characters, and objects.
The development and testing of the program, as well as the implementation of their own quests, began in May 2022. The correct connection and configuration of the augmented reality (AR) system proved to be the most challenging part of the development, as the program had to accurately recognize gender, correctly place characters and objects.
In October, the team already presented the MVP and began refining the product. Besides the actual development process, the team actively searched for potential partners. Acceleration programs and participation in startup competitions were catalysts for their development. For instance, in April of last year, GuidAR took part in the Ukrainian Cultural Foundation competition in the "Innovative Cultural Product" program. In August 2021, the project passed the selection process for the Virtual Incubation Program competition.

In September 2021, the team won a place in the finals of the International Social Impact Start-up Competition, Social Impact Award Ukraine 2021. They pitched their project to the honored jury in the final round on September 30 at the UnitCity space in Kyiv.

Additionally, in September, the project was presented at the 20th International Economic Forum, organized by the West Ukrainian Business Club and the Department of Economic Policy of the Lviv Regional State Administration. The event took place at Arena Lviv.

The final event before the "release" of GuidAR from the Engineering School was the presentation of the project to the Chairman of the Rivne Regional State Administration, Vitalii Koval, on November 5, 2022.

In early November of this year, the GuidAR team presented the results of their work on the project to the experts at the Noosphere Engineering School Expertise Center. The final pitch confirmed the successful completion of all stages of project development, including the creation of the MVP.

WHAT’S NEXT

Now the team plans for the independent growth of the GuidAR startup. Future partners of the project include tourist service providers like “Taemnychi Pidzemellia Rivnoho” ("Таемничі підземелля Рівного") and “Rivnenshchyna tourystychna” ("Рівненщина туристична"). In the near future, they plan to extensively implement the project in Rivne, which involves attracting local tourism businesses, event agencies, HoReCa establishments, museums, and more.
Furthermore, GuidAR has even more ambitious plans, including the integration of partners from other cities and regions of Ukraine into the GuidAR application. 

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GRATITUDE FROM THE MEMBERS OF GUIDAR TEAM 

The members of the GuidAR team are immensely grateful to Olha Mykolaivna Stepanchenko, the head of Noosphere Engineering School Rivne, and Tetiana Bodova, the coordinator, for their advice, ideas, and constant motivation at all stages of project implementation. They would also like to express their gratitude to all participants of the Engineering School's laboratory who provided advice and guidance on the software implementation of the product.