Walking with the Wounded is dedicated to raising funds for the re-education and re-training of our wounded servicemen and women. On Saturday April 16 2011, the Walking with the Wounded North Pole Expedition Team, supported by Artemis Investment Managers LLP, skied into the record books, as they became the first team of unsupported war-wounded amputees to reach the Geographical North Pole.
In the build up to this amazing achievement Katapult worked with education charity Skillforce and Walking with the Wounded to create a 'Virtual Walk to the Pole' website to engage young people with the Polar expedition via a web based expedition game that would be part education, part fun, part fund-raising.
Katapult and Strawdog Studios worked together to design and develop the Walk to the Pole microsite and game. Participating SkillForce teams took part in classroom-led weekly interactive challenges that mimicked the activities and schedule of the actual Polar team through mini games, quizzes, leader boards and physical challenges. It was split into two main phases the 'Training' and the 'Expedition' and the performance during the training phase had a direct correlation with how well the expedition went.
There were 48 participating schools over 12 weeks and the game comprised a series of weekly challenges. Armed with stepometers, the kids aimed to walk 10,000 steps each per day, tracked against the real expedition. The progress of each school team was tracked and scored as they competed with each other to be the highest scoring team to reach the virtual North Pole.