One of the benefits working with SMALLab is the unlimited R&D opportunities with the system. In the beginning of the research, we as a team dug deep into SMALLab, broke it down to the finest grind, and tried to find out and understand every single attribute and affordance this play space has to offer. One of them that I was excited about is the over-sized projection from the ceiling. With black and white image or drawing, this 6400 lumens projector can create high-contrast bright and dark areas on the floor. This is how the shadow bots idea came to mind, to create line follower like robots to follow the edges of dark areas.
I started out the experiment with Lego Mindstorms first. My out-of-box Lego light sensor doesn’t work well in this environment so I decided to make my own sensors. The experiment is awesome, the back and white projection has created a virtual wall for this little yellow mobile bricks (see the first video). I then made an Arduino version of the same robot with a Tamiya bulldozer kit.
Hack the LEGO sensor to read projection light.Playtest with a few friends and colleagues.