The Waikiki Aquarium has gone mobile, just in time to mark World Oceans Day today.
No, it hasn’t launched a traveling road show with its rare peppermint angelfish, colorful giant clams and chambered nautiluses.
Rather, mobile applications have succeeded the aquarium’s popular, printed activity booklet for younger visitors. The apps were created by Information Technology students at Kapiolani Community College, through a partnership.
"That was just a dream come true," said MaryLou Foley, aquarium director of community outreach.
It helps that Foley and Frank Haas, KCC dean of Hospitality, Business and Legal Education, used to work together in the visitor industry.
This life is all about relationships.
Students in KCC instructor David Nickles’ ITS 381B class took a field trip to the aquarium, as do 30,000 much shorter schoolchildren each year.
Each of Nickles’ students got an activity booklet and was instructed to "rip a sheet out — use it as your inspiration," he told TheBuzz.
He challenged his teams of students to make "not just an electronic version" of the booklet page, but "do something more, bring in animation."
"They took the basic game and ran with it," he said.
In the semester’s four months the students learned how to use professional development tools and other computer science skills, they worked collaboratively and overall "the project gave them a … taste of a professional production environment," Nickles said.
They also did something lasting for the greater community.
It was "thrilling" to see the finished apps, Foley said.
The apps, optimized for the Google Chrome browser, are now live and available on the Waikiki Aquarium website, as is a description of activities planned for today’s World Oceans Day commemoration.
The Seal Survival app has the player navigate a Hawaiian monk seal through a two-screen maze with sharks swimming throughout, with ocean waves sound effects. The app is devoid of gruesomeness, should the seal encounter one of the sharks. The player simply gets a new screen asking whether they want to play again. It is safe for even the wee ones.
The Reef Riddles app has players match a swirling pictogram with one of many possible names of sea creatures, which also are spinning amid ocean sounds.
Perhaps the most involved of the three is the Hermit Crab Home app.
Players are tasked with matching cute, cartoonish hermit crabs to their desired shells within a watery, mazelike environment. Drawings of the hermit crabs appear to the right of the screen with educational details and an image of the shell the player is tasked with finding for that particular crab. Time is of the essence. It is easier to move the crabs over the sand than the mazelike vegetation, and should timing get dicey, the home-finding crabs can nosh on some greenery along the way to restore time. No crab is left homeless, however, for if time runs out, a helpful net will scoop up the crab and the next one will be brought to the screen, hopeful to have the player help get it home.
Sadly, your columnist was able to domicile only four of the five crabs in a few attempts at the game. Hey, there was deadline to consider.
The apps will no doubt provide hours of play and enjoyment for the proverbial kids of all ages. Cubicle-dwelling office denizens might also enjoy the tranquil music and bubble sound effects of the hermit crab home-finding time-waster, er, educational activity.
Two of the app-developing students will attend a National Oceans Month event at Honolulu Hale on Thursday, staged by the Mayor’s Office of Culture and the Arts.
"We’re going to continue to find opportunities to spotlight them at our various family events by having them come down with a tablet or iPad," to show kids these games they created, Foley said.
"We’re just so appreciative of this collaboration," she said, and anticipates an expansion of such endeavors.
