Singing Sock Puppets

Matthew Irvine Brown spoke at This is Playful last Friday and I wanted to share his playful genius. Matthew’s talk was pure playfulness and it such a relief as I was beginning to worry about the day’s events. Although best known for his work at Last FM, he concentrated his talk on his sideline personal projects: Trumpet Hero, Breath Control Car and Singing Sock Puppets.

Check out his site for these playful projects and more but I found his singing sock puppets the most captivating, I would like one, very much please.

"This is a singing sock puppet. There's a sensor inside that knows how wide his mouth is open, so he can sing up and down a scale. Open his mouth a little, he sings a low note; open wider, he sings a higher note; even wider, he screams at the top of his voice. And so on."

www.irvinebrown.com/

That was Playful

I went along to Conway Hall to step outside of my comfort zone and learn a little about gaming; I’m a huge fan of playful design so I was open to new experiences.

The event was organised by Pixel Lab and compèred by their very own Toby Barnes, it would be a day of 20minute talks and lots of tea breaks. It was a varied day, with lots of super intelligent people, some of which were very charming and funny, some less so, but a playful attitude was in abundance, whether you were tech savvy or not, it was an inspiring day.

Highlights included making a Guitar Hero guitar into a real acoustic one, singing sock puppets, free jelly beans and a man with a gigantic head who managed to obstruct my view with such efficiency during one talk I estimated him to have achieved approximately 80 square feet of visual obstruction. Impressive.

Image credit: Tom T Pictured is Roo Reynolds hacking his Guitar