EA initiated the idea for an exhibition at the Archaeological Museum of Aegina. Aegina is a small island just 1 hour away from Athens. With the help of the Cultural NGO of Aeginitissa and the support of the Munici-pality of Aegina, EA has co-organised an Art and Photographic exhibition which took place from the 27th of May till the 3rd of June.
It was such a successful event that attracted more than 2000 visitors, thus we had to extend it twice till the 10th of June. All local stakeholders were informed and participated in the opening ceremony. There, Mr. Gregory Milopoulos, head of the project for EA, presented the 5G-Tours project and the work that has been performed in UC13. (video of the speech, story and video of the whole exhibition provided by aeginapor-tal.gr)
All schools of the island were informed and finally 200 students visited the exhibition and experienced the AR applications of ATOS and WINGS through the posters that we have also used at AIA.
Students were amazed by the AR applications and they asked to write their impressions in the Museum’s log book: “I would like you to create a site with this information (if you haven’t already)”, “when I came I didn’t understand much, but then I understood and the things they showed us were very interesting”, “I was shocked by the story of Myrtis “, “I really liked the story of Myrtis and it moved me”, “very difficult what you have achieved”, “it was very nice and we had a lot of fun, except that the boys made a fuss”, “it was a perfect expe-rience and I hope she comes too someone else have a great time like me”, “I really liked it because we trav-elled back 1,000 years”. See Figure 1 below:
From a technical point of view, we have used the commercial 5G network through a commercial 5G router with a commercial sim card. It worked flawlessly. This test revealed that we can also use the commercial 5G network to the events that we plan to organise in the future. This is very important for the sustainability and the exploitation of the project results (i.e the AR apps and the content created for UC13).
The scope of this event was to test and showcase the exploitation potential of the UC13 content and applica-tions. Thanks to the use of advanced technologies such as the 5G networks and to the great content and appli-cation created for UC13, we are enabled to present students with high quality content during educational vis-its to archaeological sites and Museums. Presenting augmentations in front of students’ eyes (even primary schools’ students) is helping them to gain a deeper understanding of the issues they are studying. See Figure 2 below:
Blending with the photographic exhibition, UC13’s amazing AR applications (through a commercial 5G newtwork) a new way of teaching the history of Myrtis from the 5th century B.C was presented. With the technique of digital storytelling, the events ‘come alive’ and through them, unique stories and approaches to historical events emerge that make them familiar to students. Through this unprecedented experience, an amazing “dialogue” unfolded between the modern works of art, the archaeological artifacts of the Museum and the augmented reality poster of Myrtis, since one was next to the other.
To disseminate the event and the project we have created a brochure, an official invitation and a poster which were placed in strategic places within the city of Aegina, major villages and the ferries. See Figure 3 below:
The event was extensively covered by national and local media and by the Athens News Agency – Macedoni-an Press Agency which has a presence in the media sector that extends for more than a century, cooperating with International and national news agencies like, Reuters, AP, AFP, DPA, EFE, ANSA and global infor-mation companies including Factiva, Bloomberg and the Financial Times.
Naftemporiki and Ethnos (national high circulation newspapers and websites) also covered the event. Other well known sites referred to the exhibition, such as iefimerida.gr, saronicmagazine.gr and cretalive.gr.