Inspiration from modular robotics and playware creates interactive football-play for Laudrup & Høgh Street Soccer.
RoboSoccer is a collaboration with Brian Laudrup and Lars Høgh to create interactive football-play. During Street Soccer the modular robotic tiles, Entertainment Robotic Tiles, can be used as a platform for playful soccer. The modular tiles can be put together to create an interactive surface so that participants can play “wall” with a soccer ball against a wall of tiles that responds with light, sound and points.
During RoboSoccer the player kicks the ball against the tiles that are lit and accumulates points depending upon how many lights the player has managed to “hit” before the time is up. Well-known elements from computer games such as, for example, bonus rounds and a high score list is also a part of the game.
The tiles are a general platform for movement and are used both in the health care sector and for play and physical activity. Their strength is inspiration from modular robotics and modern artificial intelligence, with modularity and distributed functionality. This makes it very easy for a user to assemble the tiles in new ways, thus creating new games, play or movement patterns by assembling the tiles in different configurations. In this manner, any user can assemble new interactive surfaces with the tiles to create different activities in a matter of a minute.
The tiles have a pressure sensor in the middle that registers how hard it is being stepped upon, banged on or shot at with a ball. Furthermore, the tiles each have 8 lamps that can light up in any colour possible. The tiles are assembled each to the other with the assistance of magnets which are built into the sides of the tiles. The tiles communicate with each other via infrared light. In addition to this, the tiles can “talk” together with a PC via radio communication so that it is possible to show points, show training results and statistics of a game, or document a rehabilitation exercise, and much more. An RFID card reader box is also used together with the tiles so that it is possible for the user to choose between games or to restart games.
The tiles are developed by the company, Entertainment Robotics (www.e-robot.dk) on the background of research results from the Center for Playware (www.playware.dk).