A smart and responsive ball that children can program to invent and play games has been created.
A team of industrial designers is aiming to turn “programming into play” with a hackable ball that lets kids invent their own games.
“Hackaball is a tough, responsive, programmable ball that pairs with an iPad app,” explains William Owen, from innovation consultants
Inside it is a gyro, an accelerometer, a vibration motor, nine LEDs, a rechargeable battery, some memory and a speaker.
That’s all encased in a shock-absorbent housing, and can be programmed over Bluetooth using an iPad.
The goal was to make that programming process accessible. The interface is fun, simple and intuitive for kids.
There are easy to use visual programming interface that helps kids hack Hackaball to do what they want and play instantly by swapping around different icons and colours, with immediate response from the ball.
Those responses could be vibration, lighting displays or a library of sound effects that includes a “robotic fart”.
Hackaball is a modern, technologically infused take on the humble ball. Packed full of sensors, LEDs, speakers and a mic and coming with a delightful supporting app, the ball allows kids to imagine and program their own games and other fun little functions.
Whilst the idea of a programmable ball is a simple one and very much in line with other toys, games and products attempting to introduce a generation of unsuspecting kids to the logic and power of code, the attention to design detailing across the products elements (refined form, playful UI, considered sound design, sophisticated lighting, free-wheeling game-play, branding, packaging and even out-of-the-box experience) is of a rare level of sophistication for the realms of Kickstarterdom.
An out-of-the-box experience that breaks down expectations and preconceptions of technology
Cracking open the circular, star-studded box, lucky kids of a successfully crowd-funded future will be presented with a toy in bits, the guts, skeleton and skin on show from the get go, subverting the normal preconceptions of the unapproachable and delicate nature of technological devices.
The hardware-packed core module is placed between two rugged plastic sphere halves and then held together by stretching the perforated rubber skin over the shape to bring the ball to life.
“We wanted to make software programming a function of visual rather than verbal intelligence,” explains Owen, “so that it becomes a simple introduction to programming logic for even the youngest children.”
For more information please visit: www.hackaball.com