What it does
As the spread of digital games has led children to shy away from traditional games, this project aims to foster interest in traditional culture and promote the passing on of traditional toys and culture through a mechanism to understand the fun of kendama.
Your inspiration
Old-fashioned games like kendama tend to be shunned because they seem “old-fashioned” or "difficult. I wondered if there was a way to bring the fun I felt through kendama to today's children in a natural way. I thought that a new approach was needed that would not make them feel rejected, but rather make them interested in the game. I focused on kendama, the traditional toy that I am most familiar with, and combined it with modern digital technology to develop the "Digital Interlocking Kendama.
How it works
This work is a “Digital Interlocking Kendama” that links the traditional game of Kendama with digital technology. A sensor detects the user's motion of placing the kendama ball on the plate, and its success is represented as an on-screen archery performance. Specifically, when the ball is correctly placed on the plate, the bow in the screen releases an arrow and displays an image of the arrow hitting the target. The core function of the system is the use of acceleration sensors that detect the movement of the dish part of the kendama and the ball. Each kendama is fitted with an acceleration sensor, which measures the acceleration in the X-axis direction of the dish and the acceleration in the Z-axis direction of the ball. Success or failure is determined in real time based on the movement data, providing a game-like experience.
Design process
In the early stages of the development process of this system, the most important issue was how to detect when a kendama ball landed on the plate. Various data such as acceleration, gyro sensor, and attitude angle were acquired, and it was found that the acceleration sensor was suitable for this purpose. We decided to use acceleration as the detection method because we judged it to be the most stable way to determine the movement of the balls. The next step was to build an interface that would transmit the acceleration data to the Unity side and allow the user to visually check the results of the operation. The objective was to display in real time the moment the ball lands on the plate, the bow shoots an arrow on the screen, and it hits the target. By sculpting the balls to actual size, we were able to obtain a feel similar to that of actual kendama and stable data. We also considered the handling of axis data output by the sensor. In the end, we were able to make more accurate judgments by using data that made it easier to compare the behavior of the sensor when it failed and when it succeeded. In this way, we arrived at the current form of this work through repeated trial and error, from sensor selection to the performance processing on the Unity side.
How it is different
This work is a digital interlocking kendama for beginners and children, designed from a different perspective from traditional kendama and existing electronic kendama. It is primarily intended to provide a cultural introduction and an opportunity to play. In this work, for the basic kendama action of the ball riding on the plate, a visual presentation of the bow hitting the target on the screen makes it easier for beginners to gain a sense of accomplishment. Existing electronic kendama are highly functional kendama with features such as online competition and score management, but because of this, they are designed for advanced players and tend to be difficult to operate and understand for children who are experiencing kendama for the first time. Thus, this work is expected to be a new proposal that fills the void between the “environmental dependence” of conventional kendama and the “functional hurdle” of electronic kendama.
Future plans
To prevent the shrinkage of traditional toys, it is essential to first increase opportunities for children to actually touch and intuitively understand the fun of these toys. This system will serve as a “gateway to experience,” and the very existence of kendama, a traditional toy, will be effortlessly integrated into children's daily lives. Therefore, we aim to increase interest in kendama through this system, and to create a future in which the transmission of kendama culture continues uninterrupted. To this end, we plan to design a complete kendama based on this system and create a mock-up that closely resembles the real thing.
Share this page on