Audience-controlled Games

This was going to be a story about, purportedly, the world's largest Etch-a-Sketch, which, according to this story was "was unveiled at the 33rd SIGGRAPH International Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques Conference and Exhibition in Boston." (click on this image to get the whole picture, as it were, so to speak.)

Me, I wasn't that excited, really, about the world's largest Etch-a-Sketch. I mean, it's attention-grabbing, all right, and it did make me wonder about how it actually works, or how any individual audience member experiences any real control. But, then again, I never experienced that much real control, even when I was using my regular old personal laptop Etch-a-Sketch.

What I was excited about was that an entire audience could play, together, using what looks like plastic lollipops on Popsicle sticks. Wireless lollipops, even.

Turns out that a company called Cinematrix has developed a system that can sense individual input. Granted, input is binary, limited to which side of the stick you show, but with enough ingenuity, you can do a lot with nothing more than binary input. Especially if there's a way for the technology to pick up each individual response - not just determine the average, but take into account each participant's input.

They have a small passel of games, for those who are interested in game passel-gathering. And, yes, they have a significant enough repertoire of polling capabilities to warm the cockles of even a board of director's hearts. Audience-pleasing fun, team-building for the masses, participatory art for the many. All-in-all, a technology most worthy of our collective applause.


Funspotting by Elyon DeKoven

from Bernie DeKoven, funsmith