Title	AQUARD.IO - THE FIRST LIVE INTERACTIVE AQUARIUM
Product/Service	AQUARD.IO IS THE FIRST LIVE INTERACTIVE AQUARIUM THAT CAN ACCESSED AND MANAGED R
Category	A01. Innovation
Entrant Company	MINDWORKS Athens, GREECE
Advertising Agency	ATCOM INTERNET & MULTIMEDIA Athens, GREECE

Name	Company	Position
Gregory Papadopoulos	Mindworks	Creative Group Head
Marios Theotokas	Mindworks	Project Director
Athanasia Lykoudi	Mindworks	Web Designer
Dimitris Koumpas	ATCOM SA	Web Designer
Manos Kalaitzoglou	Mindworks	Web Designer
Nikolas Theodoroulakis	Mindworks	Copywriter
Thomas Foskolos	Mindworks	Project Manager
Christos Filippis	Mindworks	Web Developer
Nikos Tsiolas	ATCOM SA	Web Developer
Thomas Foskolos	Mindworks	Web Developer
Giorgos Vareloglou	Mindworks	Business Development Director
Antonis Koutsoukos	Mindworks	Head Of Online Pr
Elisa Pardalidi	Mindworks	Creative Director
John Panagiotou	Mindworks	Business Unit Director
Giannis Noussis	ATCOM SA	It Manager
George Fikiris	ATCOM SA	It Manager

The Brief

Modern technology has made everyday life much easier but has resulted in tremendously increasing its speed, making the need for slowing things down more essential than ever before. At the same time, “Aquarium Therapy”, eg observation of an aquarium is considered by many as an innovative way of relaxation. A Google research brings more than 2,6million results for the keyword “aquarium relaxation”, while at the same time more than 43k video results end up in YouTube with related content. Having all this as an insight we decided to combine the latest web technology and our passion for fish, in the most creative way, so as to provide users with a new way of relaxation. And what better way to do so by watching an aquarium and at same time interact with it, live from their computer screen. And this is how “Aquard.io”, the first live interactive aquarium was created. Currently being in public beta stage, Aquard.io provides users with the chance to watch the fish live choosing from 3 different webcams, take turn in order to feed them or create bubbles in the water while enjoying some relaxing music. A truly integrated experience right in their computer screen.

Aquard.io began as an internal innovation research program and evolved into a much beloved project by the online community despite the fact that it was in no way related to a brand. The project was entirely self-funded with zero media budget dedicated for its promotion. The whole idea of the interactive aquarium is based on the concept of the “Internet of Things” (eg connecting physical object with the web in order for users to interact with them) & gives users the chance to: - relax by watching in real-time what is happening to the aquarium by choosing 3 different webcams - get in line in order to feed the fish - play by creating bubbles in the water In order to do this, an Arduino Uno board was connected to an automatic feeder that rotates and drops food every time a user interacts with Aquard.io. And as fish consume specific portions of food per day, a second interaction was added, something that all users could do without disrupting the fish. That was Bubbles! By using an air pump controlled by the Arduino board users can bubble up the aquarium without any time limits, with just a click. This entertaining and relaxing process is streamed live by three webcams, using the Adobe Media server and Adobe Media Live Encoder. In order to provide users with a seamless experience, we used aquascaping so as to build the interior of the aquarium, and extensive UI and UX research to make the website design user but most of all relaxation friendly. That is why very few design elements were used which disappear after a certain point so as to leave users relaxing by watching the aquarium habitat.

Since the day it was launched Aquard.io has been dearly praised by the online community. The project was featured in more than 600 blogs, websites, TV shows and directories and was discussed and shared through Social media and especially twitter at great extend reaching more than 700k users. In less than two months more than 110k users visited the website spending more than 4500h on site relaxing and interacting with Aquard.io. Having zero media budget, we managed to gain an advertising value equivalency of 4,333 GRP's (25' TV spots in Greek National TV). Aquard.io is a constantly evolving project. We are looking to provide users with even more possibilities like being able to clean the water or adjust the aquarium temperature remotely. Moreover, by a new mobile application we are currently developing and will provide users with the ability to create bubbles in the water of the aquarium in real-time simply by blowing in the application. And this is just the beginning. Aiming at further exploring the possibilities of the “Internet of Things”, we would like to advance the technology we have developed to provide users with even more options that will make their lives easier and more fun.