BikeBike

"BikeBike" was a two-week team challenge at the Apple Developer Academy, built by a team of five. Players point an iPhone at the floor, an augmented reality racetrack spawns onto the real ground in front of them, and everyone connected to the same local network races on it together.

The challenge

At the start, I thought the idea was too ambitious for two weeks. Building an AR game that could place a track in the real world and support multiple players felt like more than five people could realistically finish in that time. Instead of scaling the idea back immediately, we decided to push through the technical and design barriers and see what a committed team of five could actually build.

Building the AR

BikeBike was also the first project where I seriously explored product design. I worked across both sides of the project, from shaping the visual language and interface to implementing those decisions in code. On the development side, I worked on the AR, networking, and integration. This included world tracking and track placement using ARKit and RealityKit, as well as sharing race state between devices with MultipeerConnectivity, allowing sessions to run peer-to-peer without a server.

The design side

On the design side, I created the in-game interface, floor-scan onboarding, and the visual language of the experience. I wanted the game to feel connected to its setting, so I took inspiration from Bali's architecture and incorporated its forms and visual character into the design.

Working across both

Working on both design and tech for the same feature changed how I approached both. Design decisions had to account for what was technically possible, while the implementation often revealed problems that would have been skipped over in a static design. It was the first time I really saw development and design as parts of the same process rather than separate stages.

The showcase

By the end of the two weeks, we had something people could actually pick up, understand, and play together. The app became one of the most popular experiences during the showcase, and seeing people immediately understand the concept, race against each other, and genuinely enjoy using something we had built in such a short time made the initial ambition feel worth it.

What I learnt

BikeBike was my first real exposure to spatial computing, real-time networking, and product design in the same project.

It showed me what a small, committed team can achieve when the goal is ambitious enough to force everyone past what they think is possible.

It is the project that made me want to keep exploring AR, interactive experiences, and how design and development can work together.