AR + Ludo. Real world. Real play.
Arludo is named after two ideas that have shaped everything we’ve built. AR — the blending of the real and digital world. Ludo — Latin for play. Put them together and you get Arludo: real science, discovered through play.
The name means something
Most education companies choose names that sound safe. Arludo chose a name that means something. That's because the ideas behind it are the reason the platform exists. AR: Not augmented reality — real reality. Real science. Real methods. Real scientists. Blended into a digital offering. The AR in Arludo is about bringing genuine scientific practice into the hands of primary school students. Ludo: Latin for “I play.” The oldest word for the thing humans have always done to learn. Before curriculum. Before classrooms. Before textbooks. Play is how understanding forms. AR + Ludo = real science, discovered through play. That’s not a tagline. It’s an instruction.
Professor Michael Kasumovic, UNSW Sydney
Arludo was built by an evolutionary biologist who got frustrated.
Professor Michael Kasumovic has spent his career studying how social interactions and playing video games alter how people perceive themselves — their confidence, their competence, their sense of who they might become. He runs his research at UNSW Sydney, where he has also taught for over fifteen years.
In that teaching, he kept noticing the same thing. Students who engaged with material through play — through games that required actual thinking to win — would naturally start forming hypotheses, running thought experiments, and asking questions that sounded like science. Without being told to. Without it feeling like work.
Eighty university students were creating hypotheses without being prompted. Without knowing that’s what they were doing. That’s when I realised what was actually happening.
He built Arludo to give primary school students the same experience. Not a digital textbook. Not a quiz with animations. A platform where scientific thinking is what gameplay requires.
This isn’t based on research. It is research.
Arludo is built on Professor Kasumovic’s findings on how games alter self-perception. His research shows that structured play — specifically competitive games designed to require particular thinking patterns — can meaningfully shift how individuals see their own capabilities. Applied to science education, this means something specific: when a child wins because they understood an ecological principle, they don’t just remember the principle. They start seeing themselves as someone who understands things like that. That shift is what Arludo is engineered to create.
Ten years in Australian classrooms
Arludo didn’t launch. It grew. For over a decade, what became Arludo was being tested, refined, and improved in real classrooms — from Professor Kasumovic’s own university courses to primary schools across Australia. Every version taught us something. Every class of students showed us what worked and what didn’t. What we have today is not the product of a sprint. It’s the product of a thousand iterations with real students, real teachers, and real data.
Early years
Research begins at UNSW. Professor Kasumovic observes the hypothesis formation effect in university students during game-based learning.
Development
First games built for classroom use. Tested with primary school students in collaboration with teachers. Discovery-discussion loop identified as the key mechanism.
Growth
Platform expanded to include challenges, career features, and real scientist profiles. Adopted by hundreds, then thousands of students.
Today
1,200 Australian schools. Four flagship challenges. A full platform covering learning, arcade, videos, challenges, and career exploration.
The team behind Arludo
Arludo is led by researchers, educators, and game designers who believe that the best science education happens when students are too absorbed in something to notice they’re learning.
Michael Kasumovic
Director
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Erin Town
General Manager
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Andrew Harris
Director of Games
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Matthew Batchelor
Director of Technology
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Michael Duke
Games Programmer
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David Liu
Fullstack Developer
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