Playing in museums by constructing your game

Abstract : In this paper we present MagMAR, a system for supporting museums visits recognizing the different needs of educators and students. MagMAR combines a Mobile Augmented Reality game (targeted towards young visitors) and a Web interface (targeted towards educators). The Web interface lets educators shape and guide the learning process, while the game is intended to engage students during the visit. A first evaluation was performed asking 9 students and a teacher from a high school class to test a MagMAR in a contemporary art museum in Milan. Results show that the form game was very successful from the sociability and fun points of view, and also guided the students in the retrieval and usage of information for the quiz game. Further improvements are on the other hand due to make the game more integrated in the context and push the students to pay more attention to their surroundings.