Use an iPhone and a robot to search for ghosts! The Medama Robot is a new attraction which unites AR and robots.
The Medama Robot is an attraction which was released for a limited time at the Shigeru Mizuki Memorial Hall in Tottori, Japan. Medama is a character from Mizuki’s beloved manga series, GeGeGe no Kitaro.
The user hangs Medama from their neck and relies on his hints to locate hidden ghosts lurking in one of five places in the Memorial Hall. They can then catch them using their iPhone.
Since the ghosts can’t be seen by the eyes of a human, Medama senses their ghostly aura and points out the locations through his movements.
Once the user knows the location of a ghost, they can use the AR iPhone app, linked to the robot, to display it on the screen, from where it can be caught.
The Medama Robot received support from the Information Technology Promotion Agency (IPA), and was commercialised in the first half of fiscal year 2008.
