MakeAPlay
Latest
Insert Coin finalist: Make a Play Arduino-powered puppet show hands-on (video)
Puppet shows and tech rarely ever mix so succinctly: Insert Coin finalist Gal Sasson has taken the ages-old art form and put it on a motorized stage powered by Arduino, making it more entertaining and interactive in the process. The product, dubbed Make a Play, consists of a stage and control board (complete with buttons, knobs and joysticks) all hooked into a nearby computer, and we had the chance to play around with it at Engadget Expand. After decorating the background and adding puppets and toys onto the stage, kids can control the lighting, move two motorized carts to change the position of each puppet and they can even turn on tiny LED lights attached to the toys. But it goes one step further: you can record all of the puppets' movements and audio associated with your play, which means that your creations can be played back and reproduced on the stage whenever you want. Gal is still working on his launch strategy, so pricing and availability have not been officially announced. We take the stage for a spin in the video and image gallery below, so take a closer look. %Gallery-183004%
Insert Coin semifinalist: Make a Play is a high-tech puppet stage
The students at ITP are constantly churning out creative projects that are unafraid to walk the fine line between art and tech. So its no wonder that Gal Sasson's Make a Play wound up as one of the semi-finalists in our Insert Coin: New Challengers competition. It doesn't hurt that the concept also combines two of our greatest loves here at Engadget: toys and Arduino. The name, it turns out, is actually quite descriptive. The microcontroller-driven stage allows anyone to quickly create a piece of miniature theater using handcrafted puppets and an impressive selection of buttons, knobs and switches -- all lovingly handcrafted out of wood on this prototype. The control panel can move the actors using two motorized carts, cue lighting, playback voice recordings and even activate special electronics embedded in the puppets, such as LED eyes in the demo video after the break. Any action can be recorded and fed to a companion computer program, where tweaks can can be made to the automation. Honestly, sounds like the sort of thing we wish we had a as kids. Check out the full list of Insert Coin: New Challengers semifinalists here -- and don't forget to pick a winner!
