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Our Presence at NY Toy Fair Was a Big Hit!

March 1, 2019

Every year, we go to Toy Fair in New York to showcase to the toy manufacturers our capacity to bridge the physical and the digital. We can say that again this year, BKOM Studios’ presence at NY Toy Fair was a big hit. A lot of people came to our booth looking to see how we pushed the boundaries of the Future of play again.

Our goal when we develop new prototypes: How can we enhance the fun and the pleasure of playing with a toy? How can we introduce technology like AR/VR, connected object and even emergent technology like: voice recognition and AI and create more than just a stunt or an eye-catching experience?

This year, we outdid ourselves with 2 different experiences that drew a lot of attention to our booth.

CONNECTED TOY

The first experience that we showcased was with an off-the-shelf rifle connected with a device serving as an interface via Bluetooth. When pressing on the trigger towards one of the targets found on the walls of the booth, an infrared signal was sent into one of the barrels containing an IR LED detector (similar to when using your remote control to turn on your television).

As a result, a spring mechanism physically popped the towers into several pieces in the air, while hearing an explosion in the background and seeing a 2D animation on a built-in screen inside the booth.

Furthermore, augmented reality was also a part of the experience due to the fact that once the participants pulled the trigger, green bullets on the device were seen projected out of the rifle by a built-in application created by our studio using Unity 3D. By doing so, it really gave a touch of realism to the experience.

AMAZON ECHO

By connecting a LED screen with Amazon’s Echo (via Alexa, a virtual digital assistant), we also showcased our very own voice activated experience called Image Mania. This game experience consisted of identifying images displayed on the LED screen of various popular logos such as: food brands, sports teams, car brands, etc.  Participants had to give their answers as quickly as possible. The quicker the answer – the more points were given.

Overall, building our own laboratory and bringing it to Toy Fair to display the skillets that we’re able to do with high-end technology couldn’t have gone better.  Comments we got at our booth were extremely positive, we delivered again an experience that really proved to the industry that BKOM Studios is a leader in the Future of play.

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