Visitors to the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University can experience the museum in a fun, new way through their smartphones with a new app.
Located in Philadelphia’s Parkway Museums District, the Academy features four floors of interactive exhibits, including dinosaur skeletons, a tropical garden filled with live butterflies, live animals to touch and historic dioramas of global habitats.
The free interactive app called ANS Explore! engages visitors on a quest to uncover hidden secrets in the exhibits and to earn virtual badges while making discoveries.
The app guides visitors on a quest to find 'escaped' butterflies throughout the museum.
Players scan the butterfly-shaped QR codes to earn badges and unlock interesting information about the animals, habitats and other features of the exhibits.
The app also offers butterfly illustrations to colour in, as well as a butterfly-catching game that visitors can play anywhere.
ANS Explore! was designed and created by students at Drexel University’s Antoinette Westphal College of Media Arts & Design.
According to developer Daniel Barboni, an undergraduate in the Digital Media program, the team designed the app to be updated and adjusted as the exhibits change.
The current theme of the scavenger hunt of capturing escaped butterflies correlates with the Academy’s Butterflies! exhibit.
"The goal is to get kids and parents to explore more of the Academy and learn things they might not have known," Barboni says.
ANS Explore! is available for Android and iOS operating systems and can be downloaded at the AppStore or GooglePlay.
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