How quickly can you build a fish out of Legos? How about a ship, or a tree? Lego Life of George, available in stores tomorrow, lets you test your pattern-matching skills under pressure, providing you have a camera-equipped iPhone or equivalent, and a free app called Life of George [1] which is your blueprint, timer, progress tracker, and — most interestingly — your judge.
The $30 kit includes 144 standard Legos blocks and a special cardboard grid that serves as a key for the app, required to help your camera see your work and grade your accuracy.
Your scan is combined with your time to calculate your score. Fast accurate building equals louder applause, higher scores, and unlocks harder puzzles. Meager efforts, like my effort to make a tree [2] get meager applause.
The recognition technology comes from the Israeli company EyeCue [3] . According to EyeCue’s president, Ronen Horovitz, a few years ago, there just weren’t enough cheap cameras around to even consider this kind of toy. Today, however, children have access to both the phones and the cameras, making this new type of play possible.
In addition to Game Mode — which can be played alone or against one competitor in a pass-and-play format — it is possible to design and scan your own models, to be saved and shared. Everything you need comes in the box. Except the iPhone.
Links
- ^ Life of George (itunes.apple.com)
- ^ my effort to make a tree (www.youtube.com)
- ^ EyeCue (www.eyecue-tech.com)
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