Francobelge Design, toy car interfaces

Following on from my earlier toy car post.

Alexandre Armand and Bram Dauw met on the Media & Interaction Design course at the Art University of Lausanne (ECAL) in Switzerland. After working together on projects & in workshops, they formed Francobelge Design.

Commotion

Commotion (above) is a new form of play over a scalectrix style racing toy. The player controls the cars throttle with their voice, through a microphone built into a helmet. The louder you are, the faster the car will go. If you come off the track however, the helmet will shake. An interesting take on the process of play of an existing toy. Video here. Its no wonder that Japanese TV loved it.

RC Fight

Their next project, RC/Fight, “is an interactive game between two RC car gamers on a huge race track. Each Radio Control Car is equiped with a mini WiFi camera. Each player is on a seat and controls his own car through the camera/car view of the TV screen”.

I really like the idea of an physical world that you experience through a video game screen, although the cars look very difficult to control from the video. Looks a lot of fun though.

Posted on June 3rd 2006 under Toys