Smilebot

Role:

Casting, filming, directing, marketing, user testing

Summary:

When I first started working with We Are Matik, I was introduced to this friendly robot named Smilebot. This project opened my mind and showed me that creativity was not only limited to the marks you make on a page or the graphics you see on your screens, but it could live inside the torso of a 7 ft. tall robot.

Smilebot was programmed to perform a simple task, make you smile (and count them as you did). When a visitor takes a peek into Smilebot, a facial recognition sensor counted the amount of times visitors looked into the bot and smiled. Every time it detected a smile, a counter would tally the event. But that wasn’t all it was doing.

It was also programmed to recognize if all of it’s view ports were occupied with smiling visitors. And if it detected 4 smiles simultaneously, it would trigger a special event. In this case a rainbow would emerge from one end of the scene to the other while greeting you with a chime to celebrate the joy everyone was experiencing at the time.

My contribution came at the end of the project. I volunteered to help cast and document the promotional video. By making a few phone calls to my close friends and family, I was able to wrangle a few happy volunteers to participate. The idea was simple, create a video that brought us back to the memories of wonder and excitement of seeing and experiencing something for the first time. I knew children would have had the best reactions to represent that feeling.