Meet Sharky the Beaver, Sphero‘s first augmented reality character for their little robotic spheres. Over the past few months, Orbotix has been developing many new ways to use the toy. With this new app, the company is making its first step into the world of augmented reality.
As a reminder, Sphero is a ball with an internal motor. You can control it using a Bluetooth-enabled smartphone or tablet. It also has a built-in gyroscope, accelerometer and compass.
Now they’re working on Augmented Reality with Sharky the Beaver. It will transform your sphere into a cute walking 3D character that you control with your phone or tablet. In order to see the character, you have to keep the sphere in sight and look at it through the camera of your device.
You can throw virtual cupcakes and the little beaver will run toward those cupcakes. In the real reality, the sphere will roll toward an invisible cupcake. The virtual character was really smooth and everyone seemed to love the idea, if not the toy.
Sharky is just the first augmented reality application, with new characters and games potentially coming soon. With regular firmware updates, more than 20 apps, and an SDK that fuels Sphero hackathons — and sometimes even result in a Kickstarter campaign – it looks like Sphero is here to stay.