New interactive AI exhibit at The Tech

Animaker is the first exhibit in the world that teaches kids about AI while actually teaching machines how to recognize objects in the real world. Visitors are invited to form animals out of lego blocks, which are then analyzed by a 3D scanner in conjunction with AI software and virtually placed in a jungle temple that is projected onto a wall. There is a two minute video below that shows how it works and it is quite an impressive concept.

Animaker is now open and will be at The Tech for at least a year. For more info, head over here.

New exhibit explores the future of creative play in an Artificial Intelligence driven world
Animaker invites visitors to collaborate with AI-powered robots and bring their creations to life

May 31, 2018, San Jose, CA-- The Tech Museum of Innovation is opening a new immersive exhibit which invites visitors to collaborate with AI-powered robots to bring their creations to life. In Animaker, visitors step into a large-scale projection of a jungle temple where robots invite them to form animals out of LEGO/Duplo bricks. Their creations are analyzed by the robots, incorporating cutting edge 3D-scanning technology and an AI powered search engine that understands 3D content. The animals then come to life in a virtual ancient temple, and can be personalized by changing their look and behavior. This is the first experience in the world where children play and learn about AI by training machines to recognize different interpretations of real world objects.

Bringing together primitive and futuristic creative expression practices from cave art, graffiti, video games, LEGO and digital art, the installation breaks down barriers between the physical and the virtual world and enables completely new play experiences. Animaker incorporates cutting-edge cross reality (XR) developments while avoiding the genre-typical technological barriers such as headsets or AR-enabled mobile devices.

Animaker is developed by a global team of educators, engineers, and artists from The Tech Museum of Innovation (San Jose, Ca), AI technology startup Resonai (Tel Aviv/Palo Alto), digital art studio OMAi (Vienna, Austria) and 3D scanning startup Occipital (San Francisco, Ca).

“Animaker allows visitors to experiment with new forms of human machine interaction that are enabled by artificial intelligence, and extend one of the most beloved play experiences, LEGO building, into the virtual space,” says Galia Rosen Schwarz, VP business development at Resonai. “Our visual search engine, that understands 3D geometry and structure, analyzes each build and recognizes the animal that it represents. One of the key challenges here was teaching a computer to recognize builds that even the human eye may misinterpret.”

“It is thrilling to watch children so creatively engaged in a learning activity that so seamlessly combines the physical and virtual world. When educators, artists and tech makers come together, the possibilities for inspiring the next generation of innovative leaders are endless. We see the power of this creative confidence and knowledge of how to use new tech to solve problems last far beyond our exhibition walls,” says Nadav Hochman, experience developer and program manager, Art & Technology, at The Tech. Animaker is a collaboration The Tech is facilitating as part of a new Art + Tech initiative. The goal is to build a bridge between the global creative community and the high-tech sector of the greater Silicon Valley to create new experiences with emerging technology.

About the Animaker collaborators:

Resonai powers machines to understand the world through super-human visual perception, allowing them to recognize objects, complex scenes and context. Resonai’s search engine, that analyzes the precise geometry and structure of 3D content, powers real time visual search and recognition. For more information visit www.resonai.com.

Vienna based art studio OMAi create visual experiences around the world. Their iPad app Tagtool, a live instrument for spontaneous digital creation, has sparked a global community of artists and educators and was featured in Apple’s WWDC keynote videos twice. For more information visit www.omai.at

Occipital makes the Structure Sensor & SDK, Skanect, Canvas, TapMeasure, 360 Panorama and the PX-80 by Paracosm. Occipital focuses on making advanced computer vision technologies simple enough for everyday use. Occipital is based in Boulder, CO, San Francisco, CA and Gainesville, FL. For more information, visit Occipital on the Web at http://occipital.com and http://structure.io.

The Tech Museum of Innovation is a hands-on technology and science museum for people of all ages and backgrounds. The museum — located in the Capital of Silicon Valley — is a non-profit experiential learning resource established to engage people in exploring and experiencing applied technologies affecting their lives. The Tech’s mission is to inspire the innovator in everyone. thetech.org