Image Credit : The Strong National Museum of Play, Northern Lights Productions, Boston, Unified Field
Project Overview
For its new $4 million Toy Halls of Fame gallery, The Strong Museum and Northern Light Productions turned to Unified Field to create a stunning digital interactive centerpiece. Bubble Tower soars 26 feet tall and invites guests to step up to a pillar of monitors to create a virtual wonderland of interactive bubbles. Built to honor bubbles, the Strong museum wanted to capture the whimsy of floating soap bubbles without the mess. Powered by a Kinect II, Unified Field’s designers and software developers created an interactive environment that transports guests into a bubble-filled wonderland.
Project Commissioner
The Strong National Museum of Play
Project Creator
Unified Field
Team
Marla Supnick, Creative Director
Maureen Lin, Art Director
Jeff Becker, Senior Software Engineer
Jun Chen, Illustrator & Animator
Project Brief
The Strong National Museum of Play in Rochester, New York, is the only collections-based museum in the world devoted to the study of play, and that’s serious business. The Strong houses the world’s largest and most comprehensive collection of historical materials related to play and is home to the National Toy Halls of Fame. For its new $4 million Toy Halls of Fame gallery that houses the National Toy Hall of Fame and the Toy Industry Association’s Hall of Fame, The Strong and Northern Light Productions turned to Unified Field to create a stunning digital interactive centerpiece. The Bubble Tower soars 26 feet tall and invites guests to step up to a pillar of monitors to create a virtual wonderland of interactive bubbles.
Project Need
Built to honor bubbles, a 2014 inductee to the National Toy Hall of Fame, The Strong museum wanted to capture the whimsy of floating soap bubbles without the mess. Powered by a Kinect II, Unified Field’s designers and software developers created an interactive environment that transports guests into a bubble-filled wonderland. Visitors can use hand and arm gestures to create and manipulate bubbles. Our software tracks skeletons to create a real-time response to actions. By pointing an arm above their head, a guest can generate a torrent of new bubbles. Our software also determines where the visitor’s head is positioned to allow them to take bubble selfies with an overhead clapping motion.
User Experience
Working with the museum’s staff and Northern Light Productions, Unified Field’s graphic designers and interface designers created the whimsical background to communicate the playful nature of popping bubbles on a summer day. The responsive bubbles, some of which contain iconic toys like teddy bears, Tonka Trucks, Game Boys, Barbie dolls, crayons, GI Joes, Etch A Sketches and Mr. Potato Heads, were animated by Unified Filed animators to behave like actual bubbles, moving on a virtual wind and responding to visitors’ real-world gestures. Visitors can clap to capture their photo in a bubble. They can outstretch their arm to catch a bubble. With a simple poke, visitors can pop the bubbles and With the wave of an arm, visitors can create a whirlwind.
Project Marketing
Not Applicable to our scope of work for this project.
Project Privacy
Not Applicable to our scope of work for this project.
2016 New York Design Awards
Digital - Entertainment & Leisure
Digital services have overtaken entertainment and leisure. They influence what and how we watch or listen to, where and how we eat, dine and play, how we book and how we interact before during and after entertainment events. We're looking for nominations that make entertainment even more entertaining.
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