Client - Education Group

Minibeasts VR

Overview

Education group asked Munk to produce a VR school workshop based around minibeasts. This subject gained a lot of excitement in the studio. VR is the perfect medium for minibeasts, the most fun solution is to shrink the kids down to the size of a pea to get up close and personal with these fascinating creatures. Due to the limitations of the devices, we decided to create a stereoscopic 360 video. When deciding which minibeasts to feature, great care needed to be taken not to terrify the pupils, so the idea of showing a spider was quickly rejected. With such a wide and diverse world of creatures we decided to make a video that features as many as we could with an additional three films to focus on some of the most iconic minibeasts: bees, ladybirds and caterpillars.

Bees

We wanted to put an emphasis on the importance of bees in the natural world. This film follows a group of bee flying through a colourful forest of flowers. Hyper-reality shows the bees infrared vision and how they can find their way around using pheromones. As the video progresses, the children are guided through the process of pollination as a bee arrives at a camomile, where it becomes covered in pollen and then transfers it to another flower. This immersive experience really engages the children and clearly communicates the importance of bees.

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“With all key elements of the ‘Living Things’ curriculum covered, these workshops are immersive, educational and memorable ways to learn.” Tamzin Smith (Education Group)

Caterpillar

One of the most challenging subjects to tackle was the metamorphosis of a caterpillar. This is one of the most fascinating spectacles in the garden. To fit the process of metamorphosis into a 4 minute video, we used timelapse from the point where the caterpillar anchors itself to the branch, through the transformation into a chrysalis and finally hatching as a swallowtail butterfly. This breathtaking process was a favourite with the team.

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“overall it is AMAZING” - 9/10 Children gave it 5 stars

Museum

Like the other animal workshops we have created, these films have a huge amount of education in a small space of time, so after having a mind blowing experience getting up close and personal with the animals, the kids need something calm. To help bring the children back down to earth, we created a museum module to finish off the workshop. Each room in the virtual museum features animals from the workshop and more. The children were free to navigate the workshop and interact with the content to consolidate their learning from the workshop. This format proved successful not only for the children, but also for the facilitators as the flexible duration of this module allowed them to fill out the remaining time of the workshop with plenty for the kids to do.