Sphero - Multiplayer Augmented Game (SMAUG)

The current paper exposes the development of a game application that combines augmented reality, modern robotics, mobile features and multiplayer networking in order to create an immersive collaboration system, where people can interconnect to have fun and complete entertaining tasks together. SMAUG is a game based on Sphero 2.0 robotic ball, where multiple players share the same driving control of the robot. Depending on the game session and quest, a player can influence a certain moving direction or the robot's speed. Furthermore, the playground is augmented on the driving surface, so each player is looking to the game scene through his/her mobile’s camera. The main objective here is that players need to collaborate in order to accomplish various tasks: collecting game artifacts, drive on augmented tracks, break down walls/gates, escape mazes and so on. In order to accomplish this objective the game is demanding collaboration: the game artifacts are distributed to different players augmented views, so they will need to communicate often in order to drive Sphero in the right direction. Finally, the most important objective was to open a new perspective on the Sphero-driven application development, creating at the same time the possibility of using mobile devices to conduct team-building activities. Author