I had a unique opportunity to come up with interactive landscape concepts for a Colorado based company that creates toy robots. I worked as the UX/UI Designer on a team of 4 all the way from ideation to delivery. Ultimately the company wanted to create an exploratory, educational experience that children and adults could participate in using their robots.
DEPTH CALIBRATION
Several robots were provided to us so we could test and explore possibilities. We learned that maneuvering the robots took some time to master, but eventually we were able to see how much space would be needed to create an engaging experience based on their speed and agility on different textured surfaces.
Ideation sessions were held to share ideas and document potential paths forward and discuss themes, technical capabilities and materials. One of the main concepts we moved forward with was the idea of recreating different terrains on a moldable surface. For instance, being able to explore the terrain of Mars, The Moon or The Rocky Mountains. We felt that sand was an accessible material and very moldable and we agreed that the interactive component was attainable by using a depth camera and short-throw projector.
Once we were able to test the robots on sand we realized we needed to pivot to account for the robots lack of traction. We were able to achieve better traction by using a playdoh material that could be molded as a more dense material to build obstacles and ramps.
Together we created and delivered a functioning, custom built, augmented reality sand table.The sand table included a touchscreen interface that displayed 6 different terrain presets. Each preset had a different color and texture theme that represented its range in topography. At the opening party we observed people playing with the robots and molding the terrain and easily navigating the interface.
Some people didn’t like the residue it left on your hands and people also mentioned that it would be nice if the table was larger.