Volapp, the educational game app from the Volandia flight museum

Air, water, earth, and heroes

Volapp, interactive game app from the Volandia flight museum

Volapp is an app inspired by the philosophy of edutainment (educational entertainment), applied to the enjoyment of cultural heritage and collective memory through the use of technologies and applications now accessible to a wide audience. Through gameplay, Volapp is based on the development of narrative paths (storytelling), actual tales and plot twists inspired by the game-books of years past, designed to be experienced interactively within the museum’s exhibits, all enhanced by the use of modern technologies available on mobile devices.
The game-app has been developed for Android tablets, a tool chosen by Volandia and made available in sufficient quantity for museum visitors. Visitors can collect a dedicated tablet at the entrance, preloaded with the game-app and a video guide from a separate project. The typical visitor (or user, hereafter) is a school-age child or teenager capable of interacting with the app’s content, understanding the descriptions, and following the instructions, benefiting from the storytelling while enjoying the games and proposed interactions.
The content is organized into 3 pathways within the museum, allowing users to delve deeper into significant themes presented by the museum itself. The 3 identified themes are as follows:
• Space
• Cars
• Airplanes

The user is guided by a virtual assistant who, in addition to acting as a narrator, introduces the three aforementioned pathways. Each pathway is structured into multiple stops, with the journey unfolding along a physical route within the museum’s exhibition halls. At the entrance to each pathway, the user is prompted to scan a QR code that “launches” the respective journey. Each pathway consists of ten “stops.” Each stop is easily recognizable by the user, either through the narrator’s instructions or by specific signs placed near each stop. These signs feature a dedicated QR code, which, when scanned, activates an interactive and multimedia activity such as quizzes, skill-based games, memory games, and more. The purpose of the games, beyond their entertainment value, is to help the player better understand the context they are exploring and uncover the secrets of the stop’s subject, thus serving an educational function.
The app offers the following features:
• implementation of 3 pathways, each composed of 10 stops plus a final logical skill question
• a checkpoint recognition system using QR codes installed throughout the museum
• a wide array of educational games and activities available to users along the pathway
• user management mechanisms, interaction with social media, and coexistence with other museum apps
Volapp is pre-installed on the museum’s tablets, available to visitors.