Latest / 360 with Katie Woolf / Dylan Bennett has had a hand in developing an NT competition for the creation of video games that teach young people about road safety, which has now become part of the National Road Safety Week

Transcript

Dylan Bennett has had a hand in developing an NT competition for the creation of video games that teach young people about road safety, which has now become part of the National Road Safety Week · 360 with Katie Woolf

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Well as we know, it is indeed our road safety Weeks.
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  Speaker 1: So essentially there are going to be various buildings and
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  Speaker 1: icons will be lit up yellow to shine a light
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  Speaker 1: on road safety and put practices in place to keep
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: everyone safe on the road. Unfortunately, we know that about well,
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  Speaker 1: there are eighteen people who've already tragically lost their lives
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  Speaker 1: on our roads this year alone. Now on average, forty
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  Speaker 1: people are killed and around four hundred and eighty seriously
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  Speaker 1: injured on Territory roads each year. As I said, it
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  Speaker 1: is indeed National Road Safety Week, and it is a
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  Speaker 1: week that honors those that we've lost on our roads,
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  Speaker 1: but it also pledges to make the lives safer of
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  Speaker 1: those that are on our roads. Now there are a
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  Speaker 1: number of businesses, a bunch of Darwin businesses that are
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  Speaker 1: trying their best to teach young people about road safety.
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  Speaker 1: And essentially a couple of weeks ago, I've got a
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  Speaker 1: call from traffic works here in the Northern Territory and
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  Speaker 1: they told me about a bit of a competition that
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  Speaker 1: they've got running called Traffic Jam. Now, they'd initially just
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  Speaker 1: open for the Northern Territory, but my understanding is that
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  Speaker 1: they receive the support of the National Road Safety Week organizers,
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  Speaker 1: and it's taken off now and become national. They've got
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  Speaker 1: almost thirty contestants as I understand it, So it is
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  Speaker 1: fair to say that it's a few road safety games
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  Speaker 1: for kids hopefully of being created which will help to
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  Speaker 1: absorb that message. Now, one business which is helping to
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  Speaker 1: teach young people about the road safety and what you
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  Speaker 1: need to do on the roads for our young ones
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  Speaker 1: is Laric and Interactive, who've created a computer programming I
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  Speaker 1: think it's I think they've created one of the games.
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  Speaker 1: And I'm joined on the line right now by the
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  Speaker 1: director of Laric and Interactive, Dylan Bennett. Good morning to you, Dylan.
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  Speaker 2: Hello, good morning Patty.
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  Speaker 1: Thanks for having me, Thanks so much for joining us. Dylan,
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  Speaker 1: talk us through how this all came about, because when
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  Speaker 1: I first heard about it, we'd heard through Traffic Works
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  Speaker 1: here in the territory and it seems to have just
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  Speaker 1: grown and grown.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely has so. I mean traffic Work.
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  Speaker 3: One of the anti game designers, Nathan, he also works
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  Speaker 3: at Traffic Works n T. And he kind of had
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  Speaker 3: the seed of an idea that a great way to
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  Speaker 3: teach people about road safety would be to have a
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  Speaker 3: competition to encourage game developers to make video games, and
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  Speaker 3: that's that's that's.
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  Speaker 2: Where I come in.
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  Speaker 3: So my my company is about teaching people how to
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  Speaker 3: make video games. And so we partnered up together and
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  Speaker 3: just thought we'd run a little, you know, nt little
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  Speaker 3: empty kind of competition.
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  Speaker 2: But then it just exploded. So we're, you know, fortunately
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  Speaker 2: because we you know, had.
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  Speaker 3: Some amazing sponsors that Trace come on board and help us,
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  Speaker 3: and then we also had the National Australia Road Safety
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  Speaker 3: Organization with Peter Fraser come on board. It opened it
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  Speaker 3: up to the whole of Australia and then we've gotten
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  Speaker 3: devs from every state and territory except for acc It's
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  Speaker 3: not sure why that is, but every day territory have
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  Speaker 3: jumped on board to make games around this message.
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  Speaker 1: That is awesome what I love. Oh, there's so much
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  Speaker 1: to love about this. But I love the fact that
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  Speaker 1: it started out as a Northern Territory initiative, with Northern
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  Speaker 1: Territory companies deciding that this would be a really good
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  Speaker 1: thing to do to teach young people about road safety.
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  Speaker 1: And I love that aspect of it as well, that
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  Speaker 1: it's about sort of getting in there early, making it
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  Speaker 1: fun for the kids, so it is something that hopefully
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  Speaker 1: is ingrained in them about being safe on the roads
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  Speaker 1: as they get older.
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  Speaker 2: Yep, the games that came through just blew us away. Honestly.
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  Speaker 2: It's such high quality video games that I made.
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  Speaker 3: They only had a month to make these games, and
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  Speaker 3: you know, it takes the years sometimes to make fully
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  Speaker 3: polished games.
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  Speaker 2: But some of these games are good enough to put
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  Speaker 2: on the store right now.
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  Speaker 1: How cool.
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  Speaker 3: It's like we've got thirteen year old developers, you know,
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  Speaker 3: and fifty year old developers all kind of working together
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  Speaker 3: around the same message.
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  Speaker 1: Oh how awesome. So tell me in the end how
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  Speaker 1: many people actually entered the competition or how many groups
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  Speaker 1: of people if there was more than just an individual
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  Speaker 1: in some cases.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, so we can tell that there were twenty eight
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  Speaker 3: people that signs up, So we don't know some of
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  Speaker 3: them will be groups, so there'll be more people overall.
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  Speaker 3: But twenty eight signed up. And we had the range
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  Speaker 3: from thirteen to like I said, fifty plus in terms
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  Speaker 3: of age. And then we have thirteen video games around
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  Speaker 3: road safety and that's so so so different. Like one
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  Speaker 3: is the video game, which is a VR experience where
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  Speaker 3: you're on one of the buses and it does things
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  Speaker 3: like teach you how to exit the bus safely, but
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  Speaker 3: it also puts you through this really really impactful kind
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  Speaker 3: of feeling of being on the bus while rocks are
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  Speaker 3: being pulse about it as a way to dissuade people
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  Speaker 3: from doing that kind of thing. The way to like
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: off road style education to make sure that when you're
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  Speaker 3: going camping and you're going off roads, you know how
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  Speaker 3: to do that and so your more traditional like drinking
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  Speaker 3: alcohol while driving how to an impact.
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  Speaker 1: So is it going to be an opportunity for people
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  Speaker 1: to actually see these games or have a go up
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  Speaker 1: playing there.
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  Speaker 3: Absolutely so they can be played now if they want.
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  Speaker 1: So.
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  Speaker 3: All of the games are upline and online and we
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  Speaker 3: have like the traffic works and Facebook page has all
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  Speaker 3: of the links where you can go and play the games.
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  Speaker 3: But also this Saturday we have a showcase event because
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  Speaker 3: we really wanted to highlight, you know, how amazing these
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  Speaker 3: games are and also the fact that we started in
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  Speaker 3: the NT, we wanted to have an actual physical event.
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  Speaker 2: Here in the NT to do that.
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  Speaker 3: So that's this Saturday. It's at the Palmerston Recreation Center
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  Speaker 3: of twelve o'clock We're really super fortunate. The Honorable Evil
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  Speaker 3: Order is going to be there to give a Denotes
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  Speaker 3: presentation and all of the sponsors and games will be
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  Speaker 3: set up for you to meet and play.
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  Speaker 1: Good stuff. Good on you guys, you know, to you
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  Speaker 1: guys at Alaric and interactive, but also you know to
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  Speaker 1: Traffic Works for coming up with this idea. I think
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  Speaker 1: it's fantastic. Like I said, right from the outset, I
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  Speaker 1: love saying Northern Territory business and companies do well and
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  Speaker 1: think outside the box. But then I love the way
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  Speaker 1: that young people are involved as well, and it is
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  Speaker 1: all about making sure that you know that we're trying
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  Speaker 1: to educate them in a fun and interactive way how
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  Speaker 1: to be safe on the roads.
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  Speaker 2: Yep, I mean this is really there.
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  Speaker 3: I mean they two out of three Australians play video games.
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  Speaker 3: You know, it's the past watching television in twenty twenty.
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  Speaker 2: One, and so this.
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  Speaker 3: Is how you engage this generation, you know. And I
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  Speaker 3: think what we saw was a really diverse group of developers,
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  Speaker 3: not just the younger generation who are playing the video games,
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  Speaker 3: but actually so your mature developers who play video games.
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  Speaker 1: Now, did you determine a winner in the end or
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  Speaker 1: is that still sort of happening or were they all
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  Speaker 1: too good to choose?
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  Speaker 3: Well, they were definitely all too good, but we did
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  Speaker 3: have a couple of winners in the end, and we
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  Speaker 3: have different themes for you know, everyone can win different awards,
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  Speaker 3: so you know, like the best use of theme was
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  Speaker 3: this amazing futuristic game where it was about what happens
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  Speaker 3: when driverless cars actually break down and you need to
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  Speaker 3: regain control of your vehicle. So that we thought was
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  Speaker 3: a really cool way of this challenge. The rising star
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  Speaker 3: was a fifteen year old local developer who you know,
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  Speaker 3: pizza delivery within your mum calls and suddenly your visibility
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  Speaker 3: is reduced and it's a dangerous to drive. The most
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  Speaker 3: innovative game, you know that was the VR Experience. I
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  Speaker 3: mean it's honestly like it's worth putting it under the
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  Speaker 3: our headset and playing. It's really well done.
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  Speaker 2: And he's a.
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  Speaker 3: Local VR developer who's done VR at CDU.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, all good stuff, Dylan. It's lovely to talk to
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  Speaker 1: you this morning. Like I said, I reckon, this is
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  Speaker 1: fantastic mate. I really appreciate you having a chat with
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  Speaker 1: us and telling us more about it.
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  Speaker 2: Awesome, Katie, appreciate the time.
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  Speaker 1: Thank you, thanks very much for chatting with us, and honestly,
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  Speaker 1: anything that we can do. I think when it comes
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  Speaker 1: to road safety and you know, trying to educate people
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  Speaker 1: to be as safe as possible, not just themselves but
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  Speaker 1: everybody on our roads, I think the more we spread
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  Speaker 1: that word, the better it is. More Ken Yeah, thanks
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  Speaker 1: so much, Dylan. I appreciate you having a chat with
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  Speaker 1: us this morning.