Qualcomm's Vuforia In Action with Sesame Street Characters

“Much of Sesame Workshop’s success can be attributed to our collaborative, research-intensive approach to the development of programs and activities. Qualcomm’s Vuforia platform offers a new dimension to mobile experiences. We think it can bring enhanced entertainment and educational benefits to children.”
- Terry Fitzpatrick, chief content and distribution officer, Sesame Workshop.

Sesame Workshop has been a longtime advocate of embracing cutting-edge technologies to enrich children’s early learning experiences. At the International CES (Consumer Electronics Show), Qualcomm and Sesame Workshop unveiled the result of their latest collaboration, a prototype playset that brings physical toys to life.

Using a tablet and a traditional playset, children engage with their toys to make playtime both fun and educational. The prototype playset includes elements such as common household objects, as well as figurines of classic Sesame Street characters Cookie Monster, Bert and Ernie. Children interact with this playset using a tablet and an application that features Qualcomm’s newly branded Vuforia^™ augmented reality platform. When the tablet is pointed at the playset, the pieces and the play environment come alive through the tablet’s camera, transforming the playset into an interactive experience.

“In the past, the only place toys came to life was on TV and in movies. Today, we are bringing that magic one step closer to reality,” said Jay Wright, senior director of business development at Qualcomm. “With the ability to recognize 3D objects, Qualcomm’s Vuforia platform will transform the play experience. Our collaboration with the Sesame Workshop is helping us demonstrate the power of augmented reality to enrich children’s lives.”

Qualcomm’s award-winning Vuforia platform transforms real-world objects into interactive experiences for use in gaming, interactive media and instructional applications.  Sesame Workshop seized the opportunity to combine their educational research with cutting-edge technology to address children’s developmental needs. Augmented reality is another major step in proving that technology can be a useful tool in children’s education.

For more information, read the full press release here.

News Coverage:
A Game-Changer for Television? Sesame Street Will Be First Interactive Show
Reuters

CES: Qualcomm Teams with Sesame Street, Microsoft
The Street

Educational Applications of Augmented Reality
Raman Media Network

CES Moment of Zen: A Fuzzy Friend
CNet

The Sesame Workshop Blog

Sesame Workshop is committed to working with educators to create dynamic content in order to provide Chinese children with the cognitive and social skills needed to reach their highest potentials. One component of the project is to provide tools to address the needs of children in the aftermath of natural disasters and to support the development of Hope Primary Schools in poverty-stricken rural areas.

The second phase of Outreach addresses emergency preparedness. With news and learning resources dedicated to help children and their families recover from disasters, there are limited resources and instructions to help get families prepared for emergencies before they occur. To address the importance of emergency preparedness, the partners worked closely with CYDF to evaluate the materials to ensure the contents are appropriate and effective for Chinese children and their communities.

Currently, 75,000 kits have been distributed across 15 provinces in China that have been either prone or recently experienced a natural disaster. This kits include educational DVDs, which help children learn how to deal with natural disasters in an engaging way, a parent/caregiver magazine that teaches families how to develop an emergency plan and a children’s activity book which extends their knowledge with fun and useful exercises. The goal of these kits is to prepare families for the event of a natural disaster so that they can be ready to deal with whatever may come.

For more information, read the full press release here.

The Sesame Workshop Blog