Play Pit - an interactive projection mapped ball pit

Play Pit

For the UK release of the Sony Xperia Z2, Sony enlisted Citizen, PUSH and Red Paper Heart to create an extraordinary experience. We wanted something to break down the walls of traditional launch parties and encourage people to interact with each other... something that combined projection art with the play-area from Chuck-E-Cheese. In other words, we wanted people to have an amazing time.

Tap to load video...

The result was an interactive ball pit. PUSH modeled the pit after the Xperia Z2, to give guests the feeling of leaping through animations on the surface of the phone. Guests of the party could use a custom application on the Xperia Z2 to choose a style and a color for the pit. Then they got to leap into the pit to see their selections explode across the surface of more than 25,000 balls.

We used depth sensors to track the user’s jump, triggering explosive animations right at the point of impact. Users could swim around in thousands of plastic balls while infrared camera tracking data triggered animations that react to their movements. When the ball pit was not in use (which was pretty much never), audio reactive animations responded to the DJs selections kept the party at full tilt.

Play Pit - jump inPlay Pit - each guest used a custom application on the Xperia Z2 to choose a style and a color for the pitPlay Pit - the Play Pit was multi user, of coursePlay Pit - ball pit selfiePlay Pit - an interactive projection mapped ball pitPlay Pit - an interactive projection mapped ball pitPlay Pit - generative animations that react to movementsPlay Pit - going for a swim

The tour went through London, Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds, beginning on May 7th and ending on May 29th, 2014.

Team

  • Zander Brimijoin - Creative Director
  • Daniel Scheibel - Technology Director
  • Helge Kiehl - Art Direction, Design, Animation
  • Adrià Navarro López - Developer
  • Charlie Whitney - Developer
  • Lisa Walters - Senior Producer

Created for Sony

  • Citizen - Agency
  • Push UK - Event Production