Overview: Semester long project in strategic design. We started from an exploration of a choosen quality of interaction: kinesthesia. We prototyped the experience of kinesthetics in a playground, and recorded ourselves playing, doing gymnastics, and learning new tricks like capoeira and cartwheels. We found that the joy of motion was enhanced by cooperation and learning, and created an interface to communicate the joy of collaborative movement.

Pictured: Collabolla (aka collabowobble). In collabolla, two players share control of a single character's movement to play a classic arcade game (pacman). The joystick is replaced by two space hopper balls – one for the x axis and one for the y axis. Players can use the space hopper balls however they wish – bounce, roll, rock back and forth, one moving pacman up and down, and the other left and right. Players have to communicate and cooperate with eachother to move pacman around the screen. It's a hell of a lot of fun.

Collabolla was exhibited at Bu.net internet cafe in Turin, Italy in Jan 04, and was featured in the 2004 Salone del Mobile exhibition at the Triennale in Milan. In December 2004 Collabolla went Copenhagen for Next 2004; and this summer will be exhibited in London at the Victoria and Albert Museum!

Class: Secret Life of Common Objects, Interaction Ivrea, 2003

Team: Jennifer Bove, Simone Pia, Nathan Waterhouse
Faculty: Massimo Banzi, Edoardo Brambilla, Stefano Mirti, Jan Christophe Zoels