Mark Clements, Editor-in-Chief, Poultry: I'm Mark Clements, Editor-in- Chief Poultry with WATT Global Media.
A little earlier this year, I came across a virtual reality biosecurity training tool that had been developed by immersive technology company, Think.Digital. It was created at the request of industry body Australian Eggs.
Now we all know that biosecurity is important for a whole variety of reasons, but in the case of Australia, it's the only continent that remains free from highly pathogenic avian influenza.
That doesn't mean, of course, that there's not concern that it may reach Australian shores, and so it's little surprise that Australian Eggs is helping its members to protect their farms. Now, the tool that I mentioned and the company that developed it Think.Digital. The company was founded by Tim Gentle, himself an ex-chicken keeper, and he joins us today to tell us a little more about this novel training tool.
Tim, welcome, delighted that you could join us today.
Gentle: I'm very glad to be here. It is eggxcellent!
Clements: So, Tim, you've developed this, this rather wonderful virtual reality training program, but, but first, could you tell us how working with Australian Eggs came about and exactly what they wanted.
Gentle: Well, the big thing Mark is to innovate training, because, you know, what is training these days? Sometimes it's some online slides or a video or a brochure. So Australian Eggs just kind of wanted to push the boundary a bit. So they approached us because they knew that we're innovating training using VR and AR - virtual reality and augmented reality. And so they posed the question, how could we use this technology to innovate the training? And hence, the virtual tour was born. And so then we worked with them to use the technology to upskill producers on biosecurity and how to increase, I guess, the way they protect their farms from biosecurity breaches
Clements: The program is aimed at a particular group of workers, which is, which is new starters, I believe. Why has there been such a focus on them?
Gentle: Traditionally, when you have new people start on your farm, they're put through an induction process or a training process, and this would traditionally probably be sitting in the tearoom or being a PowerPoint delivery or even just a farm walk. So what they wanted to do was they wanted to build the capacity faster, so get them engaged in the training, get them learning different skills quicker. But they also wanted to broaden the reach, actually Mark, into training organizations that prepared skilled workers for the industry as well, so it's not just the egg producers that we were targeting, it was training courses, or training, we call them TAFEs here in Australia, but organizations that provide training for new people, so when they get out to industry, they're a lot more aware of the biosecurity issues, and then when they do their formal training, they're going to hit the ground running a lot quicker.
Clements: You mentioned that Australian Eggs wanted to break boundaries, but could you not have got the message across, let's say, with just a simple video? What are the advantages of VR?
Gentle: Well, we've had a history with Australian Eggs. This isn't our first rodeo, so to speak, with them. In fact, we produced a fully interactive virtual reality training, where they put on a VR headset, and they actually went to a computer-based farm, and they performed certain duties to increase their awareness of biosecurity. So they would, you know, go into certain locations, they would spot certain issues, and they're wearing the VR headset.
What we did find, though, is that it only had so much capacity in terms of the reach, because people don't all have VR headsets. So they approached us and they said, “What can we do in a web-based world? What can we do online?”. And we suggested to them to create a virtual tour, which is like a Google Street tour. We can move through a facility using our mouse and keyboard, and we can interact with the environment. So yes, why didn't we just do a simple video? Well, we did. We incorporated simple videos, but we put them into an interactive environment where the person can actually do both, so they watch traditional 2D videos, but then they perform a quiz, or some sort of interactive experience where they reinforce the learning.
What's interesting Mark, and I know you've played around with the tool, I mean, you could probably tell me a little bit when you were playing around with the tool did you get distracted by your e-mails or look at your text messages or, you know, just tell me a little bit about your…
Clements: No, absolutely I mean, I found it, found it absolutely fascinating. I mean, I think I'm probably a VR novice, but I found it hugely interesting moving around within the virtual environment. But I was going to ask you, how long did it take you to go out and shoot everything that you needed and then edit it into this, you know, like I said at the beginning, quite amazing, final product?
Gentle: Well, just to recap on what you just said then, though, you found it amazing to go into the experience and you were encapsulated by that. That's the, that's the golden ticket. See, when you can get the learner fully engaged, they're going to learn a lot more, and they're not going to be distracted, so that's what we've found with virtual reality, or this clickable virtual tour. People actually don't get as distracted, so you kind of suck them in and, and they don't get distracted by the digital world, so to speak, and then they go in and they learn a lot more because they're so focused.
But in terms of producing it, I'll be honest, Mark, we were able to shoot that in two days, so we were able to go out to property and, and get the various shots, and then the videos themselves, the 2D videos, some of them were already produced and supplied by the client.
That's what I quite like about this tool, Mark. We can repurpose existing assets, so we don't have to go and record all new training videos. If you've already got them, we can repurpose them and put them into the virtual tour.
And then to build it, so the first thing we call is, you know, going and filming, but before the filming, we storyboard, and we talk about what are the learning objectives that we want the person to experience? So well, before you push record on a camera, you've got to storyboard it, and then once you've filmed it, then you've got to do postproduction, which is the development and the construction. And look, that'll take somewhere between four to six weeks, and that's including client feedback loops. So we get the client to have a look at it and make sure they're happy with the journey. And then we have to do some user testing, and we have to sort of make sure it actually works. So we get some people that haven't seen the tool, and if we get them to interact with it, and then we have to tweak it, and then after that, we publish it. And we often do a social video, which I know you're going to make available to your listeners. That's always good to do to reflect,
So I would say, end to end, Mark, including storyboarding, it's about a two month project.
Clements: And whilst you were on the farm, did you encounter any particular difficulties?
Gentle: Well, yes, there are some difficulties, but nothing we can't overcome.
So let's just talk about a few of those. So one of them is that the chickens are quite curious, aren't they? I mean, I love chickens, right? We, we know they're so. So if you put a 360 camera there, which is the camera that I use to take these photos. Mark, just to break down what a 360 camera is. It has six lenses. So, you know, when you take a traditional photo, you would stand behind the camera, wouldn't you, and click it, so on our phone or, or an older camera. Well, this has six cameras, so you can't stand behind the camera, because what would happen if you're out there, Mark, what do you think?
Clements: You're going to interrupt the view of the lens, I'm guessing.
Gentle: That's right, because if they spin around, you're going to be in the shot. So you have to, you have to position the camera, and then you have to go hide.
Now, I used to, you know, I find little spots to hide, and I hide behind bushes if I'm doing sort of free range, or, you know, I might hide behind a piece of equipment, depending on what I'm taking. But when I was out doing the free range, when I ran away from the camera, and then to get ready, all the chickens followed me and gave away my hiding spot. That was a bit of fun.
The other one I did have a little bit of trouble with was the, at the back, at the back door, where they remove, what do they call it, where you remove the, you know, or the dung? And they loaded in the back of the truck, when I was filming that the wind was blowing, and I must admit, I got a fair bit of dust and dirt on my camera, so that that was an interesting one.
But look, we're pretty particular. We've done this for years. We were so thrilled that we were working with Days Egs, who already had a lot of biosecurity measures in place. It didn't require me to say –
‘Oh, can we make sure the footbath is in place? Can we make sure you've got to sign up? Can we make sure you've got the hose there to wash the car or wash the truck?”. They had everything, so they were such a great partner to work with.
Clements: Beyond your work with Australian Eggs, you've been working on an AI for disease detection in cattle, and I understand that this could be applied to poultry in the future. Are you able to share anything about that with us?
Gentle: Well, if we break down what AI is, AI has the ability to remember what it saw. And so yes, when we're dealing with the cattle disease, we're feeding a computer different photos of diseases. And then the camera, you know, we take a photo of the particular sore on the, on the cattle, and then we feed that to the AI model, and the AI model learns what it's looking at, and if you show that photo 1,000 times, different types of photos of the same disease, the computer starts to recognize it. And so AI is a brilliant tool to train up a model to recognize diseases. And so we've managed to do that with cattle on some of the more exotic diseases that we don't want here in Australia. So we've had to go and get photos of cattle in different spots of the world, and then we're hoping that when someone in Australia takes a photo of a cattle, these diseases don't come up. So in terms of how that technology would work in poultry, well, it could recognize the size of an egg, it could recognize some sort of blemish or some sort of disease on the beak, or eye, or feet, or wing of a bird. Tell me a little bit, Mark, large egg layers do they have, like security cameras and cameras watching, I assume they would inside..
Clements: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, and increasingly so.
Gentle: So, yeah. Well, Mark, I think where it would really work, well in the poultry industry, is to access that live feed of the, of the chickens, and then maybe it would watch their behavior, maybe if they're not walking around, or if they're limping, or, I'm not sure what sort of signs….
Clements: Sure, there are certainly lots of developments in that area, and not just video, also audio.
Gentle: Ah, nice, yeah, so AI is a, is an incredibly powerful tool that can obviously help, not replace but supplement the human vet and the people that observe in, I guess, in the poultry industry, people that observe chickens and identify if there's any issues within the flock, but if they can single out certain, you know, birds that potentially have a disease.
Clements: I heard that Think.Digital won a bus and turned it into a VR classroom. Tim, tell me what's the story behind that?
Gentle: Well, Mark, the interesting thing was, there was a competition on Facebook that said: “What would you do if you won a bus?” And I read this post, and I'm thinking, and I'm thinking that, that, that can't be right, but you had to put an entry in, and it had to be within 25 words or less.
And I'll be honest, my original entry Mark was to create a mobile chicken barn where they would climb aboard the bus at the end of the night, then you would move the bus, and then they would climb out at the end of the day. In fact, a few people do that, don't they, around the world, but I ended up putting another entry in, and this entry was to convert it into a classroom and travel throughout regional, rural and remote Australia, educating people about the digital world. I sat back and, Mark, two months later, they gave me a call and they said, Tim, you won the competition, come and come and collect your bus.
Clements: Good for you.
Gentle: That's a 15-meter bus, Mark. It's, it's huge. It's got 20 headsets. It travels throughout Australia, and people jump on board the bus, and they're immersed in the digital world to learn about how food is produced, and so far, we've had over 150,000 people on board the bus over about an eight year period. So it's been a big success,
Clements: Brilliant. Now, Tim, what's next for think digital? Tell me.
Gentle: Well, the big thing for us at the moment is to create more immersive training, to teach people tactile things that they can do to improve safety on farms. So we've got, we're getting some business there.
But the other one that we're very interested in doing is we've just launched our first product to the market, and this one's called Cattle VR, and it teaches people how to move cattle around the yard without being kicked or without getting into difficulty. And so Cattle VR has been born, and we're really excited about that.
When it comes to working with the poultry industry, we believe that biosecurity is where the training is, and so we're really nailing that, and we're going to hone down further on that particular interest. But we just created careers in the poultry and so we've just launched that, and we went around to a large chicken farm here in Australia, we filmed and met a lot of different people in the industry, and so now we have a careers piece for students in schools to consider moving over into the industry.
Clements: Tim, thank you so much for joining us today and for explaining the virtual reality training tool to us, and fascinating to learn about Think.Digital's other work, I'd love to come back and talk to you again about that last careers training project that you mentioned.
Thanks, audience, for joining the podcast. You can view the virtual reality training tool on the Australian Eggs website. Tim, thank you again.
Gentle: Thanks, Mark. I hope, in some way, we're doing our bit to attract people into the industry and to train them up and to keep them in the industry, to help the poultry industry grow across the world.
