1.
PINOKY：
A Ring That Animates Your Plush Toy
Yuta Sugiura, Calista Lee, Masayasu Ogata,
Anusha Withana, Yasutoshi Makino, Daisuke Sakamoto,
Masahiko Inami and Takeo Igarashi
KEIO MEDIA DESIGN, The University of Tokyo, JST ERATO

2.
Plush Toys
• People are living with plush toys
• What if my plush toy is alive….

3.
Pinocchio©Disney

4.
Vision
talking...
Dancing...
Watching movie...
• Giving a life to your plush toy

5.
Concept of PINOKY
• An accessory that animates personal
plush toys

6.
Design Guideline
• Easily to use
• No damage to plush toys
• Scalability
• Aesthetically pleasing
• Safe and robust
• Adequate movement actuation

7.
External Actuation Method
• A key is attached to each motor
• The key is in contact with the surface of the toy
• The key pushes the surface, thus bending the
toy
Key

8.
Sensing the Joint Angle
• Photoreflectors are embedded in the
device at either end of the ring
• They measure the distance to the surface
of the toy
Photoreflector

9.
Ring-shaped Device
• microcontroller, wireless module and
battery are packaged in one module

10.
Covered with Felt

11.
Attachable and Removable
Without any Special Tools

12.
Interaction with PINOKY
SynchronizeRecord&Play
Voice ControlAccelerometer Kinect
Remote control

13.
• Record the movement by bending joint
• PINOKY plays back the movement
Record and Play Mode

14.
• Synchronize multiple PINOKY
Synchronize Mode

15.
• Connect various input devices ad hoc
Other Interactions

16.
Investigation and User Study
• Japanese science museum
• Conducted two studies
– Investigated the usage of plush toys in daily life
– Played with plush toys using PINOKY
• To check the validity of design

17.
Plush Toy Usage in Daily Life
• Without PINOKY
• 30 Participants answered general questions
– 70% of the participants owned more than one plush toy.
• How participants played
– Move the limbs
– Synchronize the motion

18.
Play with Plush Toy Using PINOKY
• 51 Participants: 2 – 70 years old

19.
Validity of Design
• Easy to use
– All participants were observed to be able to use the
device easily.
• No damage to plush toys
– No damage to the surface of any of the plush toys
used in the experiment.
• Scalability
– Participants move various parts of a plush toy and
attach as many devices as they like.

20.
Validity of Design
• Aesthetically pleasing
– The size of device is too large.
– Noise of motor
• Safe and robust
– Four days of testing,
– no injury
– all the devices were working properly.
• Adequate movement actuation
– Require more complex movement such as twist and
jump

21.
Magical Experiences
• Participants were surprised when normal plush
toy moves.
• Participants can’t understand how the plush
toy moves.

22.
Pilot Study with Users Own Plush Toy
• Daughter received the plush toy 20 years
ago from her grandma.
• This brought back memories of the past.
• She also noticed new things about the toy.

23.
Limitation and Future Work
• Variations of movement
• Size of the device
• Sustainability of interactions

24.
Other Possibility
• PINOKY animates not only plush toys but
also everyday objects

25.
Related Work
Giving movement to
everyday objects
Koizumi et al.
Plush Animal Robots
Shibata et al.
Plush Toy Interfaces
Yonezawa et al.
Configurable Robots
Raffle et al.
Exoskeleton robots
Sankai et al.

26.
Conclusion:
Ring Device that Animates Your Plush Toy
• External actuation method
• Designed packaged device
• Investigation and User Study
– Investigate the usage of plush toy
– Check the validity of design
We are demonstrating
in interactivity session
yuta.sugiura@gmail.com, www.sugiur.com