MADEONEARTH

Touch and Go

If you’ve ever watched a child play with a pinstriped, pint-sized Hot Wheels racer, you may have wondered if the toy car was following some secret, virtual map in that child’s mind. Sketch-a-Move not only proves that the answer is yes, it brings those invisible maps to life.

Created by London-based designers Louise Klinker and Anab Jain as a concept project for Mattel Hot Wheels, Sketch-a-Move allows you to use an erasable whiteboard marker to draw a line on the roof of a toy car — and as soon as you set it down, the car follows that path as a driving command. Draw a straight line, a spiral, a circle, or a squiggle, and the vehicle cruises or careens accordingly. Draw and redraw as many times as you desire. Klinker says she pursued the experiment “to challenge the intuitive and creative skills of children,” and “to explore the unique relationships between small surface doodles and actual physical movements.”

The prototype developed by Klinker and Jain was a non-fuctioning mock-up, but the technology necessary to make it work is in the here and now. By putting a touch-sensitive screen on the toy car’s roof and placing a writeable surface over it, a microprocessor can read the stylus-like input — the line doodles — and translate it into movements performed by two solenoids and a motor, to steer and lend speed. A rechargeable battery powers the entire unit.

Sketch-a-Move’s masterminds say initial presentations at Hot Wheels Headquarters were a hit. Still, no word yet on when the doodle-driven gizmos will show up on store shelves. —Xeni Jardin

Left: Sketch-a-Move performs a fancy slalom maneuver through styrofoam cups and around a toy robot.

>>Sketch-a-Move: l wk.dk/sketch_a_move/sketch_content.html

Photography by Anab Jain and Louise Klinker

20 Make: Volume 01