The Snap Augmented Reality (AR) Lens Challenge is a student-led programme created to help young people develop the foundational digital skills they need to be successful in the future digital landscape.
It has been designed for students aged 13 years+ and runs over 3 weeks (2-3 hours a week) as an extracurricular programme, and is delivered in 3 main stages:
Some of us have been single-minded about our goals since primary school. Some of us have only recently realised that we can actually do whatever we want to.
Regardless of whether you’ve always been a dreamer, or recently jumped on the hustle, you’ve got the Zero Gravity mindset: to defy the odds and make your ambitions real.As a tech-first platform, we’ve always believed that the process can all take place behind your laptop. Entering a digital world of learning, upskilling, mentoring, dreaming, scheming, plotting and winning - you can become a success from behind the screen as you take those big steps out into the real world.
It’s time to use tech to power up the future you never thought possible.
This year, we want you to design a Snap lens to showcase the journey of making your ambitions real to your Snapchat friends.
It could be anything. Your childhood dream of becoming a doctor or a lawyer. Your plan to travel the world or move to a big city. Your ambition to write a book or launch a new app. It could be something you care about or even something that helps the local community. Whatever you want to do, and whoever you want to be, don’t wait. Make it real right now, with the power of AR.
As you go through the process of thinking about what lens to create, consider the following questions:
How can your lens be put to use? To connect with something you care about or are passionate about in some way? This could be a hobby, a cause, future ambition or something you love and care about.
How do your individual ambitions, hopes and values interact with the worlds of others?
How has this technology (AR) changed or could change in the future the way we communicate and interact with each other?
As part of the process we encourage you to speak to one other person (whether that is a fellow pupil, teacher, parent, friend or other) that can introduce the idea of testing or responding to the experiences or knowledge or something else to help build your idea. We encourage you to have a conversation, interview or put together a questionnaire to gather this information.
As you design your Snap Lens for this year’s AR Lens Challenge, think about:
What images would you design?
What special effects would you include?
What movements would trigger those special effects?
We want you to use the skills of Critical Thinking throughout this program. In design, Critical Thinking aims to evaluate and analyse problems, ideas or different situations in order to build a clear unbiased understanding about possible responses, solutions, concepts or futures. In design it can be observed in three parts.
Individual Motivation – the values, experiences, hopes, skills held by the designer or maker
Community / Exchange – The wider network of ideas, expertise, communities of knowledge, debates which the designer is interacting, testing, engaging with.
Impact – Awareness or evaluation of the impact that the designers ideas, concepts, output has on the world's/communities of others, the environment, global issues etc.
Check out these resources to help you make your lens:
We’re excited to see how you express yourselves, what you all come up with and through our collective creations, we will be one step closer to making it happen.
Top Tips
You can use the existing templates in Lens studio to start building your Lens
You can design assets through Illustrator, Photoshop, or any other design software (i.e., Canva, Figma) that you can import into Lens Studio
You can use existing images from the web that you can import into Lens Studio (just make sure you avoid using brand logos or unapproved third party assets)
You can incorporate movement and sound to make your Lens fun and interactive
Try and see if you can use more than one design asset (ex: 2D, 3D, multiple Snap lenses) used throughout the Challenge to showcase your skills!
🔥 HOT TIP 🔥- the use of 2 or more Snap lens templates increases your overall final score!
After you have completed the tutorials under the “Level up” section of the website, and have attended the Lens Lab and/ or Office Hours, you’ll be ready to show off your latest fashion statement to all your friends with your Lens.
Prize
The students with the winning lenses will have the opportunity to receive one of the following prizes:
First Prize - A £1,000 voucher for either Apple or Amazon
Second & Third Prize- A £200 voucher for either Apple or Amazon
All Participants receive a certificate of completion
There will also be a work experience day visit to the Snap Offices for a select group of the top performing students at the beginning of 2025.
Judging Criteria
The most successful Lenses will:
Be creative and innovative.Creatively celebrate or express at least one part of the creator’s identity
Be something that Snapchatters would want to interact with and share
Draw upon skills that were developed during the Snap AR Lens Challenge
Check out these resources to help you make your lens:
Deadline
The deadline to submit your Lens: The deadline to submit your Lens: 23:59 - Friday 22 November 2024
Submission Entry
👻 When you are finished, submit your Lens to be officially published on Snap.
For details on how to submit your Lens, click here. Here are some extra tips:
Make sure you are not using any copyrighted material.
Click the yellow “Publish Lens” button on the top left corner of Lens Studio to begin the process.
Be sure to add the tag “snaparchallenge” to your Lens when you submit.
Once the Lens has been accepted and published, download its Snapcode (when scanned, the Snapcode will link to your Lens). Here’s an example:
Then, submit your Snapcode and a 10-second preview video of your Lens by filling in the Competition Entry Form using the guidance included. Before submitting your final Lens for the competition, make sure you read the full terms and conditions by clicking here.
If any questions come up throughout the submission process, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us at hello@zerogravity.co.uk
Best of luck in designing and submitting your final Lens!
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