Tree Buddy is an immersive AR experience where you plant and nurture virtual trees, track your CO₂ reduction and forest growth, and earn rewards—making eco-consciousness fun while inspiring sustainable choices in the real world.
This project was created for the Apple Swift Student Challenge 2025 and was selected as a Distinguished Winner.
Step into a playful yet impactful augmented reality world with Tree Buddy. Plant digital trees effortlessly on any horizontal surface, watch your virtual forest evolve in real-time, and track the positive environmental impact of your actions. Nurture your digital forest, earn Carbon Credits, unlock badges, and compete on leaderboards, all while being inspired to make a tangible difference in the real world.
| Welcome Screen | Carbon Store & AR View |
|---|---|
 |
 |
| Initial onboarding with key features. | Interacting with the store and planted trees. |
- AR Tree Planting: Seamlessly plant various tree models onto real-world surfaces using ARKit.
- Growth Simulation: Nurture trees by watering them and watch them grow over time. Use "Growth Boosters" to accelerate the process.
- Environmental Impact Tracking: Monitor key metrics like CO₂ reduction, total forest size, and water usage via interactive charts.
- Carbon Credits & Store: Earn credits passively from your trees and spend them in the Carbon Store on new tree types or boosters.
- Badges & Achievements: Unlock unique badges for reaching milestones (e.g., planting your first tree, reaching a certain CO₂ reduction). Share your achievements!
- Leaderboards (GameKit): Compare your environmental impact stats with friends and the global community (Note: Full Game Center integration requires deployment beyond Swift Playgrounds).
- Contextual Tips (TipKit): Receive helpful, non-intrusive guidance throughout the app.
- Immersive Audio (AVFoundation): Enjoy ambient nature sounds and satisfying sound effects for interactions.
- Modern UI (SwiftUI): A clean, intuitive interface inspired by visionOS aesthetics, built entirely with SwiftUI.
- LiDAR Integration: Utilizes LiDAR on supported devices for enhanced occlusion and scene understanding.
Tree Buddy leverages a suite of modern Apple frameworks:
- SwiftUI: For the entire user interface, ensuring a declarative, responsive, and modern look and feel.
- ARKit: For world tracking, plane detection, and anchoring virtual content to the real world.
- RealityKit: For rendering high-fidelity 3D models, handling lighting, and managing AR entity interactions. Supports 4K HDR on devices that support it (e.g., iPad Pro).
- Combine: For managing asynchronous events, timers (tree growth, credit generation), and state updates.
- TipKit: For providing contextual onboarding hints and feature discovery.
- GameKit: For integrating Game Center leaderboards and achievements.
- AVFoundation: For managing audio playback (ambient sounds and sound effects).
- Charts: For visualizing environmental impact data.
I am incredibly honored that Tree Buddy was selected as a Distinguished Winner in the Apple Swift Student Challenge 2025. This project was built with immense passion and a genuine desire to blend technology with sustainability in a fun and engaging way.
- Clone this repository:
git clone https://github.com/AllStars101-sudo/Tree-Buddy.git - Open the
Tree Buddy.swiftpmfile in Swift Playgrounds (Requires Swift Playgrounds 4.5+). - Ensure you have an iPadOS device running iOS 16.0+ (AR features require a physical device with a camera, macOS Catalyst will likely not work).
- Build and run the app on your device using the Swift Playgrounds app on iPad.
Note: Some features like full Game Center authentication might require additional setup or provisioning profiles.
- The Bamboo 3D model asset used in this project is sourced from Poly by Google (now discontinued archive) and is licensed under CC BY 4.0. Proper attribution is included within the project comments where the asset is loaded.
- Other 3D assets were created or sourced appropriately.
This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.
- Thank you to Apple for the opportunity to participate in the Swift Student Challenge.
- Thanks to the creators of the open-source assets used.
Made with ❤️ by Chris Pagolu.