This week we had the opportunity to meet with the amazing John Rick  to really hammer down what excites him about bringing Augmented Reality technology to Chavin. Rick's excitement centered on the interest bringing new technology brings to the site, and the idea about creating a more educational and meaningful experiences to the visitors of Chavin. He stressed that for most people, unless they are well read on the significance of Chavin before coming, the site just seems like a bunch of stones and holes. Especially for kids there is a necessity to convey the importance and meaning of the site that excites so many art historians and architects in the field. 
Rick also provided us with many invaluable resources conveying the most up-to-date and accurate information about what researchers assume the site would have looked like in its prime. Surprisingly, one of the best visualizations of the site is found in a comic book drawn by an on-site artist. 

Not only does this comic book provide an accurate estimation of the full site, but also guesses at the beliefs and clothing of its original inhabitants!
Incorporating even a fraction of the life at this site portrayed in this book into our app would be fantastic!
We have the power and technology to make people feel that they have time traveled when they reach the site and can help them learn about how cool and significant this site is to native religion and traditions. 

John Rick is also in the process of compiling other visualizations for us from the Stanford archaeology department as well as 3rd party companies. We are excited to begin work synthesizing this information and crafting an exciting experience for anyone who wants to visit and experience the magic of Chavin!

Our current major challenge is that we cannot be in Chavin to test and build our application. So in order to accommodate and still work toward our end goal we will be selecting a Stanford campus building to create the foundation of our app. This will not only allow us to work on developing a robust system that conforms to the goals of our project but also learn of any potential issues early on before going on site to test. 

​We are excited to start developing and are continuing our exploration of possibilities of AR technology for the site!