Sandflat Heroes: Bringing hidden worlds to life
- Genna Revell
- 2 days ago
- 5 min read
GeoAR’s interactive simulation, Sandflat Heroes, is bringing Aotearoa's vital but overlooked marine ecosystems to life on screen. This story explores how the technology is helping scientists make the invisible visible - and inspire greater awareness of why these fragile sandflat environments matter.
A sandflat might not appear much at first glance: perhaps a sweep of bare, muddy ground continuously washed by the tide.
Beneath the surface, however, lies one of the most productive ecosystems on the planet: a hidden world teeming with a plethora of marine life that help keep nature in balance.
To marine scientist Professor Simon Thrush, sandflats are the “systems we overlook”.
While most public attention goes to kelp forests, rocky reefs, or colourful fish in marine reserves, Aotearoa’s harbours and estuaries are dominated by these flat habitats.
A healthy sandflat might host around 200 kinds of macrofauna, from bivalves and crabs to shrimp-like amphipods and burrowing worms, as well as countless smaller organisms.
Their collective effort is immense.
Shellfish filter water, worms oxygenate the sediment, and crabs and other burrowers recycle nutrients. Thrush points out that the productivity of some estuarine cockle beds rivals the best dairy farms in Waikato or Taranaki.
And because they sit at the interface of land and sea, estuaries and their sandflats also store carbon, buffer storm surges, and provide the nursery grounds that sustain coastal fisheries.
Yet these vital ecosystems face an array of pressures.
Sediment and contaminants wash in from catchments, while roads, causeways and marinas alter water flows. On top of this, fishing, climate change, sea-level rise and marine heatwaves all take a toll.
“We’ve seen major die-offs in our estuaries when animals are just left cooking in warmed water in the sand flats.”
Thrush says it’s a growing worry that most of this is happening out of sight and out of mind.
Many Kiwis might live a short drive away from these delicate ecosystems, but few might stop to think about what’s beneath their feet when taking a seaside stroll.
That challenge – how to make the invisible visible – became the starting point for the simulation Sandflat Heroes.
“We really wanted to bring people into that space so they could get to see just what the animals do within the sediment.”
From sediment to screen
The idea for an interactive simulation was first floated by Thrush and his colleagues at the University of Auckland’s Institute of Marine Science, alongside Dr Tim Haggitt, who manages the university’s Marine Discovery Centre at Leigh.
Both had long wrestled with how to make estuarine ecology accessible to students and the public.
“Kids are increasingly disconnected from the marine environment,” Haggitt says.
“We sometimes get seven and eight-year-olds who come through the centre who have never picked up a starfish.”
Rather than railing against screens, the team decided to meet children where they already were, with a digital, yet authentic, experience – and one designed to spark curiosity and raise awareness of the crucial roles these habitats play.
Working with GeoAR’s Melanie Langlotz, they developed an augmented reality app that brings sandflats to life in 3D.
Scan a poster and suddenly worms burrow, crabs scuttle, and shellfish filter-feed before your eyes. Each creature comes with bite-sized facts about its role in the ecosystem.
“The fun comes through discovering things like the animal signatures which the player may have seen when walking on a sandflat and wondering where those squiggles in the sand or weird looking bird foot patterns come from,” Langlotz says.
“The simulation allows families to discover what's below the sand that finally explains the mysteries.”
Haggitt feels that, ultimately, the process was about making sandflats cool for kids.
“And that’s because they are. When you look at these species under a microscope, they look like something from outer space; as I always say, nature has the best special effects.”
The development process was iterative. The scientists provided photos, descriptions and feedback, while GeoAR’s team refined animations to get movement and behaviour right.
“If the developers had just gone away and come back with something, it wouldn’t have been half as good, so the back-and-forth was crucial,” Thrush says.
Langlotz adds that the concept happened to evolve from one of Thrush’s own vivid descriptions, of a ‘city’ lying within a cubic metre of sand.
“That led to the idea of slicing up the sand cube into sections that reveal a few of its inhabitants,” she says.
“AR allows the viewer to look at the cube from any angle and move around it or closer to see detail: it gives it a more life-like feeling.”
In all, the project took about six months from concept to working model.
From cool to connected
Launched at the Marine Discovery Centre, Sandflat Heroes is now used in three main ways.
Visitors can explore the app onsite, often lingering 15 minutes or more. Educators incorporate it into workshops, including a carbon cycle programme where worm burrows illustrate oxygen exchange.
And because it’s portable, staff can take the app to schools, community groups, and even faraway estuaries like Marlborough or the Far North.
The response has been striking. Families gather around screens, children exclaim “wow!” and educators use the moment of wonder to delve deeper.
“If we just said, ‘go check out the sandflats,’ that’s probably where the conversation would end,” Haggitt says.
“But once kids see the AR animals, it opens up a whole new set of questions. Then we can talk about the real science.”
That’s exactly the point, says Thrush: to turn a moment of wonder into lasting awareness of why sandflats deserve protection and care.
The end goal, he says, is for kids to take what they’ve learned back to the beach.
The app teaches them to spot siphon holes, burrow mounds, or worm trails: the subtle signs of life on the sediment surface.
“It’s like turning them into mini detectives,” Haggitt says.
“Our hope is that it proves a lightbulb moment, telling them that, hey, it’s not just sand or mud – that there are these other cool things happening within it.”
By showing the hidden engineering of worms, clams and crabs, the game reframes sandflats as dynamic, valuable ecosystems.
Haggitt sees further potential: integrating plastic pollution or scavenger-hunt elements, creating classroom modules, or even adapting the game for other habitats.
“It’s a foundation we can build on.”
Comments