Interactive Toy Vending Machine

Capsule toy vending machine, commonly called "gacha-gacha" in Japan, was introduced to Japan in 1960's and it became very popular soon. Nowadays many kinds of capsuled toys are sold not only for children but also for young or elderly people.

Existing capsule vending machines just serve capsuled toys. We propose a new platform that enables customers in front of a vending machine to play with toys and the machine. The machine presents a worldview and stories of toys, and allows interaction with them.

This project is a cooperative research project between Kentaro Fukuchi (The University of Electro-Communications), Kaori Enomoto, Yu Izawa, Fusako Kusunoki and Hideki Kaji (Tama Art University).

Sample animation (snapshot) — Screenshots

Publications

"Narrative toy vending machine with RFID tag/sensor and capsular figures" (PDF)
Kaori Enomoto, Kentaro Fukuchi, Fusako Kusunoki, Hideki Kaji: Proceedings of WISS 2005 pp. 145-146, 2005.12 (Japanese)
"Tangible and Collectible Entertainment System with Capsule Vending Machine" (PDF)
Kentaro Fukuchi, Yu Izawa, Fusako Kusunoki: Proceedings of Tangible Play Workshop , 2007.1