Jill Shah
Designer & Technologist
BioWorkBlog


Cosmic Camp - An Intergalactic Experience

Cosmic Camp offers an extraordinary play area that transports guests on an extraordinary journey via hands-on games, real-world obstacles, and whimsically themed cosmic settings. This captivating immersive environment has been operational for more than a year, featuring diverse games that enable participants to navigate molten terrains, decipher frozen crystals, operate rovers, and engage in a range of other captivating activities.

Client: CAMP

Location: Manhattan & Brooklyn, NY

Role: Projection Mapping Artist,  Onsite Installation, QA Specialist






Interactive Everything
 In collaboration with the team at Future Colossal, I facilitated the execution and installation of our interactives in this mesmerizing space. The project boasts of using state of art technologies like RTLS (Real Time Location Service), physical computing, projection mapping and lidars. 

Cosmic Camp was built around something we call "playground mechanics." Think of it like this: we used the space theme to create an experience where there's no fixed start or end to any activity. You can go anywhere, do anything, and switch between different things to do without worrying about strict rules. It's all about having fun and exploring!





The Technology
Behind the scenes, the whole experience was powered by the RTLS technology. An intricate network of Radio Frequency Anchors was installed in the ceiling of the space which tracked custom wearables given to our little campers. This meant that our custom application knew where each kid was in the space at every moment, tracking their progress though the interactive games as they  grabbed virtual collectibles spread across the area.

Hopping between rocks on the lava field, flinging asteroids into the black hole, or hitting buttons on the spaceship control panel—all these moves led to earning or losing points via their mix of real-world and digital actions.






FEATURED IMMERSIVE MOMENTS


The Floor is Lava

This interactive featured projection-mapped lava pools and physical obstacles, daring players to cross fields without touching the virtual lava. Using LIDAR, we were able to detect player’s feet across the lava field and give them points for successfully avoiding obstacles. Kids had the most fun while jumping across rocks and collecting coins. Projection mapping made this an high impact, visually stunning interactive that engulfed you on a fiery planet.

Remote Rovers

Players had the exciting opportunity to guide rovers across a mysterious alien terrain, navigating through the unique landscape. As they skillfully operated these rovers with custom joysticks, Computer Vision enabled our game application to detect the moving rovers and givng scores to the player if their rovers reached a projected, virtual coin.


Ice Cave

Transporting you to a cold, ice-blue planet, the ice cave invited players to solve memory challenges by interacting with giant Ice Crystals. We built custom game controllers inside the ice crystals which aided in solving a simon-says style puzzle and winning coins! UV lighting coupled with projection mapping added an extra layer of immersivity in the space.



Deep Space

This interactive challenged our litle campers to conquer black holes by throwing balls into them.  LIDARs mapped an entire wall with holes in it and detected when any ball crossed the wall and successfully landed inside a black hole, giving points to the players.



Cosmic Camp was one of my first immersive client projects, and the most memorable one. It was a truly tech-filled experience with over 30 computers, complex networking and state of the art technologies. It allowed me to utilize my skills as a spatial and installation artist with a lot of learning - about new technologies, about game and play design, collaborative work and more.