Misconceptions of the Mariana Trench
Created By Tyler Mihaljevic
Eiffel Tower
At the beginning of the experience, the Eiffel tower briefly appears before the player sinks past it.
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In order to signal how truly deep the trench is, this portion of the experience happens very quickly while the water is still a light blue color.
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By the time the user reaches the abyssal zone the tower is already long gone.
Angler Fish
Once the user reaches the abyssal zone the user is met by the Anglerfish.
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The Angler Fish slowly swims out from the depths below and up to the player.
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The Angler fish is depicted as slow and harmless to add to its interaction shortly after.
Trench Floor
Despite being 7 miles deep into the ocean, the trench floor is still covered with wet sand.
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Trash floats down from the ocean's surface and litters the floor of the trench, the model has a crushed soda to indicate this.
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The animals in the trench have alarming levels of radioactive Carbon 14 in their muscle fibers, though the trench was never used as a dumping site, I used a barrel for indication.
Mariana Trench is one of the deepest parts of the ocean, it's the first thing many people think of when they hear "Deep sea" But can we truly ever understand the sheer depth of the trench without experiencing it?
Mission
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Depth Meter
Throughout the entire interaction, the user is accompanied by a depth meter. The chart spike indicates the player's position and descends as the experience progresses.
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The meter is broken up into 7 sections and categorized by miles.
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The depth meter also contains a series of 35 Eiffel Towers as another method of measurement.
Deepsea Dragonfish
One of the bits of wildlife that appear in the experience is the Deepsea Dragonfish.
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When it first appears in the scene, the Dragonfish slowly swims past the user's main view.
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The Dragonfish is presented as an intimidating force to add to its interaction later in the experience.
Wildlife True Scale Interaction
The true scales of the Deepsea Dragonfish and The Anglerfish are explored when tapped.
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The Dragonfish is resized from its gigantic perceived size to measly a 3-4 inches.
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The Anglerfish is changed from being small and harmless to about half the height of a human at 3.3 feet
Radioactive Amphipods
Amphipods are a type of crustation that live all throughout the ocean. They are some of the only bits of life that can be found at the trench's bottom.
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Once the user reaches the bottom of the trench, they are met by three amphipods.
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The amphipods are given transparent skin to look as close to their real-life counterparts as possible. They are modeled so that their muscles can be seen through their skin.
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Once the user taps on any of the amphipods their radioactivity kicks into high gear.
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The amphipods start to emit green sparks and clouds of smoke.
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Despite containing traces of radioactive material, the overall health of these trench inhabitants are unknown.
Misconceptions of the Mariana Trench is an AR (Augmented Reality) educational experience designed in the Unity engine. The primary goal of the experience is to clear up 3 common misconceptions about the trench: the size of the trench's wildlife, overall pollution level, and how far down 7 miles truly is. The experience is available on android devices.
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Everything in the experience is interactable. Everything. The objects that fall past you the water, the marine life, even the garbage lying on the ocean floor. Everything has a purpose in this experience and information appears on every object that is interacted with.
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Version 1.0 Blind Reaction
