TexTales

In September I had written about how a father of two had decided to re-write the Tooth Fairy experience for the 21st century. Now in this latest example of interactive 21st century fairytales, Eindhoven University of Technology has created TexTales, a new kind of smart textile that when combined with augmented reality can enhance the experience of reading a fairytale to your children at bedtime.

TexTales consists of a set of bed sheets that have images woven into the fabric. The images are recognized by a custom made software that displays 3D characters from a fairytale through a tablet or smartphone onto the textile. This allows parents to create personal stories with their kids before going to sleep or during a play time.

With the support from the Kickstarter community they want to develop TexTales further by creating a storyline and characters that actually matter. For more information visit their Kickstarter page here.

Pneumatic Transport for Tooth Fairy

Jeff Highsmith, a father of two, decided to re-write the Tooth Fairy experience for the 21st century. He built a pneumatic transport system that could send the teeth of his kids to the Tooth Fairy in return of some payment.

He set up the transport system by using 1.5″ PVC pipes with a central vacuum in the attic and two endpoint stations, one in each child’s room. When the child lost his tooth, he placed it in a small plastic bottle that traveled from one station to the next, while one of the parents put the money in another bottle at the other station to send back. 🙂

More details about the pneumatic system and the Python code for the mobile web interface can be found here.