LEGO Octagon

DearStudio was commissioned by LEGO Creative Play Lab to help facilitate an exploration of play potential around a maturing concept.

In close collaboration with LEGO Model Designers, Play Designers and hardware teams we responded with a custom script-runner, implemented as a web-app (named PocketKnife), where Play Designers easily could connect sensor input to various outputs and script cause-effect / if-that-then-this ish behaviours. Sensor communication was three-fold: over WebBluetooth to LWP-capable devices (reusing code from our work on SpikePrime, Gecko) and over WebSocket to a Python backend (to bridge web with full Bluetooth capabilities like audio streaming and fast reconnects).

During the 2nd half of this one month project, the team decided to pursue an additional play potential and needed to connect a new sensor type to the experience. We responded by bread-boarding a circuitry, and once approved, assembled a rough version inside a LEGO 2x6 brick with dremels and hot glue :)

The PocketKnife app and host firmware was extended to support the new sensor.

Days later PocketKnife was used to successfully demonstrate how this concept would feel to play with to LEGO leadership.