Physical interaction design DH2400

[better video]
There seems to be a LivingSurface application in Täby Centrum!

My kids played with this for almost two hours yesterday. It seems to be quite a simple installation, based on an overhead video projector sending pictures to a white mat (on which kids run) and a video camera, most probably running a multi-touch table software, to detect the various moving spots (aka kids). It reacts more to kids who have darker clothes. There are some soft toys at one side, unrelated to the projection but giving a nice "play" and "kids" context.


[better video]

There are several scenes (balloons, flowers, water) and some of them are better designed, in that kids realize faster that the they are interactive. In one scene there are some butterflies that run away from the kids, but these are somewhat too small to notice. The water scene makes waves when kids "kick" the water, which are nice and probably challenging to do from a computer graphics standpoint, but not easy to notice when you're running around (still fun to play with once noticed). The balloons and flowers work best, as kids see them rushing away as they run around.



This looks like a commercial installation, quite reliable. It became a bit less reactive as the closing hour was approaching, not sure whether that was on purpose or it became de-calibrated. A great installation all in all, kids clearly enjoyed it.