World’s Largest Etch-A-Sketch
Crazy Stuff. Crazier People. During our Large Displays Research Group meeting on Friday, Prof. Steve Harrison brought along this knob-like input device that is one of those things that has an existence in this world, but no one really knows what it could be good for.
It’s a great tool, we figured, to hook up to one of the large plasma displays that Virginia Tech has recently purchased. Now what all can you do with a knob that turns this way and that, and can be pressed in one direction? The first thing that came to my mind (and I’m now glad I spoke it out) was, “Hey, if we had two of these, we could make the world’s most expensive etch-a-sketch.” Of course, I meant it in jest — why would someone make an etch-a-sketch out of a plasma display, and then port it to a screen composed of 40 hi-resolution LCD panels?
But I should’ve known I was with people who liked such crazy ideas – Prof. Harrison, Dr. Pérez! :) One of the undergrads actually hacked up a prototype etch-a-sketch using Flash, that incredible beast of a vector animation package and almost-a-programming-environment. All it needed was to actually hook the knob up, and we had the version 0.1 ready.
Wow. WOW. Here’s to what might be the world’s largest etch-a-sketch (as Prof. Harrison later called it.)
I have just experienced the worlds largest Etch A Sketch at the Siggraph show in Boston! It is not exactly the same as the small version. This version was projected onto a large movie screen via digital projection. People interacted with it a little differently. You did not exactly turn two large knobs. It was more like an average among a whole group of people. Each person was given a reflective paddle to hold up in the air. On one side was a green reflector and on the other side was red. These paddles were picked up by sensors then fed into a computer. The conference hall was split into 2 sections, one for the left Etch A Sketch Knob, and one for the right. It was more of a consensus, if we wanted to turn the left knob to the left, people would hold up their red sign, and if they wanted it to go to the right, then people would hold up the green sign. We were given objects to draw, so the left half and right half of the auditorium had to work together. It did work! Results varied. We also used the same technology with the paddles to play a game called cats and dogs, similar to the old school video game, “Pong”. So having used the Worlds Largest Etch A Sketch is not the biggest thrill, the biggest thrill is the technology being used to gather the data and convert it into turning knobs left, right, up and down. And the best part is how the Etch A Sketch is cleared!! Well you hold your red/green paddle up and twist it fast towards the screen, so that the screen sees, green, red, green, red, green, red, etc. then it gets cleared. I look forward to being able to use this technology on other games.
thank you,
Jay
Jay — August 3, 2006