The 6th “Future Factory of ASOBI (play) 2024” was held for two weeks from February 13, 2024 (Tue) to February 28, 2024 (Wed). This event is a hackathon for students and has previously been held for University of Tokyo students, but henceforth participants will also be recruited from outside the University of Tokyo, resulting in a diverse participant composition. Since last year, we have been able to hold face-to-face meetings at the Open Studio .

The theme of the hackathon was “Creating “future play” as a team”. Having traced the history of “play” to create a basis for discussion, each team looked at play from a variety of perspectives, deepening their ideas and placing them against the ideas of other teams through interim presentations, final screening, and team competition.

The first day, February 13th, was the kick-off where all participants, judges, advisors, staff, and other personnel met at the venue. There were self-introductions, team building, a lecture about the classification of play by Project Researcher Daisuke Kuramoto, and a workshop on how to create play by Project Assistant Professor Yuki Anzai.

To build teams, participants used self-introduction slides they had created in advance like billboards. The participants walked around, introducing themselves to other participants and talking about their interests, leading to the formation of one team after another.

Starting with the second day, there were “technical support days,” where each team was able to deepen their ideas after receiving advice from creators from various fields invited as advisors. Additionally, although the event proceeded on the basic premise of face-to-face interaction, it was impressive that each team skillfully used online tools and found ways to continue their activities at the convenience of the members.

At the interim presentation session, each team presented their ideas using slides, and received feedback from the judges and advisors. When creating their presentation slides, they tried to “make them want to play” and “convey the image of playing”. Depending on the state of progress, they even showed off prototypes that were still in the process of trial and error.

Then, with a few technical support days in between, each team continued production in preparation for the final judging. The final aim of the hackathon was to create a 5-minute video of the “future play” that the participants had come up with. In order to record a video of the game being played, a prototype that can actually be played was required. Ideas remaining only the level of initial conception received no evaluation.
Each team continued to implement their ideas, but once they had taken shape to a certain extent and could actually be played, unexpected aspects came to light, as well as subtle issues and other problems. Skills were honed through trial and error and interaction among team members, with advisors, and even between teams.

During the final judging, in addition to showing the videos they had created, each team promoted their work through demonstrations and having the judges and advisors actually play the game. Each team displayed its own character: some caused a stir when showing the video, while others caught the attention of the participants as they watched the game being played. In particular, each team had a different approach to how they perceived play, and I saw how this extended to the senses of taste and smell, where I felt there was still great potential for expansion.

After a review, the receivers of the Grand Prize, Implementation Award, and Presentation Award were selected and awarded. The results are posted on the Future Factory of ASOBI (play) website. The judging period was used as a time for participants to interact, trying out the games each team had created, and sharing the challenges faced by those who had completed in the two-week hackathon.

When I talked to the participants, I heard things like, “The two weeks went by so quickly and was shorter than I expected,” and “Even though I was working with someone I had never met before, things went very smoothly,” and “I want to do something with this team again.” Even though each participant came away with something different, the learning environment was universally perceived as positive.

Having decided to open the event to participants from various institutions, we can see that they are continuing to interact with each other in the form of visits to each other’s laboratories during and after the event. I hope that the connections and experiences they have made here will be utilized in their future activities.

Text: Daisuke Kuramoto (Project Researcher)
English proofreading: David Buist (Project Senior Specialist)