Platform · coming soon for developers

Fingerdance

A robot finger that is learning to dance. Dance with it, and it dances back.

Fingerdance on the porch at night: a robot finger in a clear case on a black plinth, lit green, with a depth camera on a pole beside it and a tablet angled on the front.
Fingerdance on the porch: the finger in its clear case, the depth camera on its pole, and the tablet on the front.
An earlier version, dancing. The video has no sound.
Not open for submissions yet More about the artwork

What it is

A four-jointed robot finger in a clear case on a plinth. In its simplest mode, walk up and it beckons you over, then mirrors your dancing: it follows your arms and legs and moves with you.

Its fuller modes go further. It invents moves of its own, judges its own dancing by rules taken from physics and biology rather than from human taste, and remembers what it has come to like, even after it's switched off. Fingerdance is part of Sentience, a series of artworks about whether a machine can have an inner life.

What it can do

Robot finger
Four motorised joints, in a 30 cm clear case. It mirrors your dancing, and in its fuller modes invents moves of its own. The finger stays under its own control; games don't move it.
Depth camera
On a pole beside the plinth, aimed at the person in front. It follows their body pose, arms, legs and head, so the whole body is the controller. Games never get the camera picture.
Touch screen
A tablet angled on the front of the plinth, 2160 × 1440.
Lights
A band of 158 LEDs round its base: 46 along each long side and 33 along each short side.
Sound
A speaker for music and sound.
Scoring
It scores each dance, yours and its own.

Games on Fingerdance

So far it runs one game, its own: stand in front of the camera and dance, big moves. It dances with you and scores you both.

For developers

Not open yet. When it opens, games will use the same game.yaml as The Algorithm, with cabinet: fingerdance, and its developer API will be published on the API page. A game will never get the camera picture or control of the robot finger.

Want to build something now? The Algorithm is open for games.