The National Museum of Australia in Canberra has relaunched its interactive Kspace exhibit, mixing gaming and augmented reality with a trip through the country’s history.

The museum’s original Kspace, which opened in 2001, featured a digital experience aimed at children and looking at the future potential of technology. But outdated technology meant that the space needed a revamp.

The reimaged exhibition lead by the museum’s project team and a consortium of contractors including Spinifex Group, Oblong Design, Wingrove Design and Lamond Building now allows children to create their own time-travelling robot and take it back millions of years to the origins of Australia.

The 30-minute experience is divided into three physical spaces in which children can explore eight scenes from Australia’s history.

The first space is the design area, where visitors can design a robot and put their own face on it. From there they visit the pod, which takes them at random to one of the eight historical scenes dating back from as far as 110 million years to as recent as the Victorian gold rush, with a specific mission to complete in each section. In the game, teams can combine their robots to create a ‘mech’, which will interact with photos and objects as players score points for uncovering the story’s narrative.

In the final area, visitors can discover more context about the scene they just played through and can also send an electronic postcard of their robot with their score attached.

The main gaming experience was custom developed by Spinifex, with Well Placed Cactus also involved. The space uses multi-touch screens, and for the main gaming experience, screens with arcade-style joysticks for game control. Following the experience, an augmented reality app for iOS or Android can be downloaded, with characters from the game guiding them to exhibits within the museum’s wider collection. The AU$2m (US$1.4m, €1.3m, £984,000) redevelopment is expected to have a lifespan of five to seven years.