Apps/Tools
An iOS AR scavenger hunt built for a live university event, where first-time users had to pick it up and move immediately.
Role: iOS developer (stakeholder-facing project)
Timeline: 2025
The project needed to work for first-time users during a live campus event, with no setup session, no real tutorial window, changing outdoor lighting, and participants constantly switching between apps. Standard onboarding and modal-heavy flows fall apart fast in that setting.
I designed the scavenger hunt around persistent AR anchors tied to real campus locations, with progress shown in a heads-up display instead of interruptive dialogs. I also built persistence around the assumption that people would background the app, open maps, and come back later.
SwiftUI handles the app shell and persistent HUD, RealityKit handles anchor detection and spatial content, and SwiftData keeps progress alive across app restarts. The anchor placements were tuned against specific campus locations so the experience stayed usable under messy lighting and real event conditions.
The app made it through the event without participant-blocking issues and was shown to initiative sponsors and university leadership. More than anything, it proved that student-built software can hold up in a live setting where failure would have been very visible.