Twinkl AR, Sheffield’s Educational Augmented Reality Developers

The Twinkl AR team explaining the importance of AR.

Over the last few years, Sheffield has become one the best cities in the UK for the tech industry, and one of the amazing companies based there is Twinkl.

Twinkl, and yes that is spelt correctly, is a company which makes educational content, including educational augmented reality apps and games.

Augmented reality, or AR, is where you use the camera of your phone and the app displays things that aren’t there in real life. A popular example of an AR game is Pokémon Go, which uses your phones camera to make it look like there’s Pokémon in the real world.

Twinkls apps and AR apps are focused on educational use in schools, such as their game Twinkl Robotics, which teaches children about how to build a rover to explore mars, and books for younger children, which have special animations of the characters on each page if you use the Twinkl AR app.

Twinkl even made an official Children in Need AR book and also created some Children-in-Need learning resources and activity booklets for use in the classroom which you can download from their website for free.

They also made a game called ARchitect, designed to be used in KS1 and KS2 lessons and is about solving problems and building the biggest tower using AR.

The reason Twinkl made this game is to attract children to science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) subjects and hopefully inspire them to work towards careers in those areas.

I went to Twinkl's Sheffield Offices to interview one of their AR development teams.

The development team I interviewed is made up of Steven Brammah, Thomas Littleworth, Owen Lyons, Liam Rushfirth and Xav Larcombe.

When I asked what it’s like to work for Twinkl, Thomas Littleworth said “It’s great because we get tons of creative freedom, our only restraint is the deadline really.”

Owen Lyons added: “Coming from three different offices before, Twinkl has been the nicest to work at.”

Liam Rushfirth also added that it’s a friendly environment where everyone actually gets along and there’s no awkward situations where people have to pretend to be nice to eachother.

Next, I asked what they believed is important about Twinkls work, and Littleworth said that he believes it’s the fact that the AR books and apps enable special needs children to learn in a more comfortable environment.

Steven Brammah also explained that many of the apps are not dependant on language, therefore the international appeal is also important to make sure everyone has access.

Finally I asked whether they believe that AR is the future of educational gaming.

Xav Larcombe told me that it would be definitely be part of the future as long as there are people to push the technology forward, which is what they are doing at Twinkl.

He added that it’s likely to become rather popular because every school Twinkl has presented their apps and resources too, the children have always been very excited about it.

Brammah said: “it’s the first product I’ve worked on that has immediate intrigue from the kids.”

He also explained how their apps can bring experiences to the classroom, for example one of their apps allows children to see exhibits from the London Natural History Museum in their classroom, for free.

Littleworth added that apps like this will likely become popular simply because they are cheaper for schools, and also make it easier for special needs children to get these experiences in a more comfortable environment.