The problem SmartAR solves

While theoretical knowledge can be disseminated through online videos and e-schooling, students, particularly those pursuing STEM, miss out on the practical side of their education. A number of STEM courses in High school and university rely on access to laboratories to conduct practical sessions and experiments. Unfortunately, due to the spread of COVID-19 most students are unable to access laboratories and hence miss out on the practical component of their education.

SmartAR looks at a new way of doing labs. The app has inbuilt AR experiments to help students perform experiments from the comfort and safety of their homes. A person will be given three options Practice Mode, Test Mode and Flash Cards.
#Practice Mode: #
In this mode this mode the person can select an experiment which he can practice and test different combinations in the experiment.
#Test Mode: #
So the Test feature simulates a lab environment and tests the ability of the student to perform the experiment without actually requiring apparatus. Once the student enters the test, they are given with a list of apparatus they can use in the experiment and instantiate in the scene. Audio instructions and feedback are also given to the student to help them perform the experiment correctly.
#Flash Cards: #
These are to help students memorize hard concepts and make it possible for them to use one of the most common techniques to memorize premade flashcard. Topic based models and question are directly fetched from Echo AR so we can keep adding more without any change to the code.

Challenges we ran into

1. 3D objects were loading too slow because of using EchoAR
2. EchoAR is too heavy on the RAM and using it with unity made it even harder
3. Making a complete blockchain with a smart contract for the first time proved quite a challenge.
4. Using C# to create the blockchain instead of JS made it even harder due to lesser availability of tutorials.
5. Using MATIC APIs with Ethereum blockchain with unity was clashing with files from IBM WatsonSDK, this was solved by merging the common files.