Andy Cooper, SwapBots

I'm Andy, I'm co-founder of SwapBots. We started SwapBots a year ago, but the idea was bubbling in our minds about three years ago. We worked around another company we started called Draw and Code. We work a lot in augmented reality, virtual reality, projection mapping, creating immersive experiences that are there to inspire and engage, but not about the technology, more about using the technology to create this magic moment. When we were working in augmented reality, working on client work and creating these experiences, we thought there must be a way, and this is about three years ago, there must be a way where we can use augmented reality as something that's really magical for kids. Because we've got kids in our lives and we wanted to do something that wasn't, augmented reality had been used a lot by ad agencies for quite gimmicky throwaway things and we'd seen that augmented reality was falling away three years ago and we wanted to use it in a way that kids could integrate with a toy and a story and we initially thought, oh maybe it could be a robot and as all good ideas, this was of course over a couple of drinks. We were in actually in San Francisco, we'd been to our first big expo to do with augmented reality, it was the Augmented World Expo, we'd taken our stuff over there to show it off and we found that there was very little content, there was a lot of amazing technology, but there was very little for people to be passionate about, so we were like, it's ripe for the picking, let's create something that people can fall in love with and feel magic about, beautiful things, you go to the cinema to feel moved and to cry and be happy, and I want people to feel that with technology, but technology is a tool, so we sat there in the pub talking about all these ideas and having some drinks and then we thought these little robots could go through a story and maybe through that story you could find different avenues and paths using a little toy and then we started thinking, well what if this little toy, which is our prototype of a swap bot, what if you could break them apart into different component blocks and you could swap those pieces around and kids could start being creative with the characters that they make, and then actually, what if they each had different attributes and powers and abilities, and so actually it's not just a straight swap of abilities, it's by putting them together in different families and different realms and abilities you create new interesting characters, but it's only by experimenting and failing and getting kids to learn and sticking them through a story and seeing them come to life, and yeah, that's what we've been working on with swap bots for the past year now, very hardcore, full time and then full time again on swap bots, to try and work on prototypes with 3D printers and staying up for 48 hours trying to work out how we can make this thing that hasn't been done before work, and how do you make all these three pieces work as something that isn't just a gimmick but kids can use it, and that's the thing, it's being used for 6 to 11 year olds, so we had to do a lot of proof of concepts with kids, and they're very honest, kids will tell you, they will be like, no, or you show it to your friends and they're like, oh yeah, I really like, that's fine, kids will just be straight up and just be like, that toy doesn't work, I don't know how it goes together, the game doesn't quite fit, so it's great to be able to work with them and just be like, having kids as part of the story, like one of the kids that was doing work experience with us helped us come up with a name for swap bots, it's trying to have that awareness of who we are trying to inspire and we're trying to bring this magic moment, and also it's the kind of game that I would have wanted to play as a 7 year old, and that's what we want parents to feel, that it's something they can enjoy with their kids as well and maybe play as well. I think the great thing, the great inspiring wonderful thing about all these immersive technologies like augmented reality, virtual reality, seeing the IOT and the depth sensors coming in and everything being very connected, is about having these experiences not being about that technology, there's a great statistic about Snapchat, about how they don't use augmented reality as the go to word for that technology, but the filter in Snapchat during the Super Bowl was used more than people actually watch the Super Bowl. So you're just starting to see this technology really expanding into the world. The amazing thing about virtual reality, augmented reality, the IOT and the kind of connected world, is about how it's going away from gaming. I think the exciting thing recently is a lot of games companies and ways of making experiences for these technologies have been with a kind of a gaming mind, but I think the thing that I'm really excited about is when artists and creatives and just anyone on the street is starting to use that technology as a tool, to create some beautiful magic moment that we wouldn't have thought of, like people who make games and have a certain way of thinking, like we will make a certain world, but like I work with the people in theater and live performance and dancers and aerialists, and they will not think of any of that stuff, they won't be thinking about video games, they'll be thinking about like how can I make this work for me, how can I make this, how can doctors make it work for them, like I know that a lot is being thought of in healthcare, but like I think the nurses on the ground, like once they start thinking about how they can use that technology, I think that's the amazing thing. I think that's the future I'm really excited about, not where technology is taking over, I think where technology makes your life all the more connected with people around you. So I can see augmented reality, currently augmented reality in its current form is used on tablets and smartphones, but it's being integrated by a lot of companies that are working in mixed reality, where they've got heads up displays, where it overlays augmented content, so they use depth sensors and it feels like the augmented content is in your real world, and it's a beautiful setup, and it feels like as you look around you can see 3D content actually in the physical world, and it's a beautiful illusion, and I think once that is a lot more easily accessible, so for instance if a nurse in surgery was able to have that heads up display, and it could easily identify lots of different aspects of the patient, or it was registering, so all the digital outputs of the patient, which is usually on another machine, could be coming up on the heads up display, and it could notify you about something happening with the patient, or something happening in another ward, and it takes you in that direction, but my skills aren't in the healthcare angle, but creatively being able to tell a story using the world around you is just phenomenal, like can you imagine we're sitting here in this hotel lobby, but you can have this heads up display that overlays a film noir story, so you see a shadowy character walking through the hotel, but because the depth sensors understand that there's a door, and there's a corner to go around, that character will lead through here, it will look like he goes around the corner, and you can follow him outside, and carry on following him through town, and you can follow him on this story in any city that you're in, and have these magic incredible moments, and the great thing about augmented reality is it uses your world around you. Virtual reality puts you in another space, and transports you to, you know, you can fight against dragons, or be on a crazy rollercoaster, and I think there's exciting, beautiful things that can happen with virtual reality, but I think augmented and mixed reality is where things are just going to be absolutely epic, where you're going to be able to play with friends, all of these experiences, and just, I mean, creative limits are just phenomenal, like it's all just about ideas, and working with other creatives, and people to collaborate together, and that's the thing for me, it's like it's about collaboration, it's not just about let's make a technology, and put it out there, and then some tech company, or content company makes something for it, like our company at Draw and Code, where we came up with the idea for Swap Pots, we're very much two halves of the same brain, there's the draw side, that, you know, work on all the crazy creative animation projection shows, and the code side, where it's all the software, and the interactive development. We don't sit apart, we work together, we get in everybody, each other's stuff, and we throw ideas around, and I think that's where we're going to have all the big exciting things happening, in technology, and content, and storytelling, it's going to be people collaborating, so it's going to be a giant tech firm that wants to make a headset, with a crazy artist downtown, with someone who's writing stories, with someone who wants to do something in the immersive space in healthcare, and all working together to try and craft that moment, it doesn't have to be very functional, or practical, a lot of people are trying to concentrate on where the big money is at, but I think beyond that, it's exciting to see where people will be able to create the big, soul money worth. We've always found, with these new emerging technologies, that you can often get caught in your little bubble, and so we were very aware that from years ago, we needed to get out to, you know, around the world, where everybody is doing exciting things, so, you know, getting over to Silicon Valley, getting to New York, and here in Austin for South by Southwest, and that's what brings us here. South by is the hub of everybody coming together from interactive gaming, music, film, everybody's here, and that's the really exciting thing, is it's not just about one leading on to the next one, leading on to the next one, everybody's kind of filtering together, so you can kind of have great conversations and ideas, and share things with people across professions, but you can meet, like, you're literally tripping up on people, around corners, there's events everywhere, in every building in Austin, that are inspiring, that are teaching you new things, you're meeting incredible people, and making partnerships, and talking about how we can spread this Wattpot story, build our community, and just find new ways of making these guys better and better. How I see maybe the near future of a technology integration into our lives, perhaps even a child's life, I think having toys, and games, and play, and activity, all being integrated, so you don't just sit down at your console and play a video game, you don't just sit down with your toy, and play with your toys, and you don't just go out and play, having something really beautiful that connects all of them together, so when a kid wakes up and goes to school, they're actively trying to be active, so that they can gain points towards their toy, or game, so that there is this kind of gamifying of their activity, that connects all of this stuff together. I think there's an interesting kind of turning point that we're looking at, where you could have everything gamified, and you could have a digital layer over all of your life, and I really think that we always crave real things and textures, so I think that though things will go to the extremes, I think a really nice middle ground between this gamified world, and real life, and collaboration with your fellow human, I think will be where things will start to go, because everybody is now playing video games on their phones, so adults are catching the train to work and playing video games, and they weren't doing it before, you needed a games console, so everybody's playing video games. After the Wii came out, your grandmother was playing video games with you as much as your kids were, everybody was starting to play video games together, and I think with kids with Pokemon Go, that started to kind of spread a lot of that gaming in the world, and people hoarding together, playing this kind of collective game, and being passionate about it, and I think those things will start to come together, where people will be playing together, and it won't just be about playing this fake world, it'll be about bringing people together to gamify, so you might go to school and kids will be playing a digital overlay game, but they might be playing that before they go to school with their mom and dad, because it's something fun, and when they come home from school, they're playing together on a game that they played with their friends in school, and then that contributes to something where they all play a game at another location, so going to destinations and theme parks and locations that help to build that experience, where you go as a family, that's somehow connected to a game that you've already played in life, so having a very big expanded role-playing game where it's not just about little mini-games, throw away mini-games, you're playing this story through your days and getting lost in it and able to share that fun, because things are very insular at the moment, you look at a lot of technologies, and it's technologies that you play on your own, and you maybe play against friends, but you might be beating them up as well, and it's trying to, I think that we're going to get to a stage where we're sharing things and being very collaborative, and sharing beautiful moments with people as a game, but gaming and film and theatre will all start to blur, I think that's this beautiful future, at the moment they're very separate, you play a game and you go to the theatre, or you watch a film, and I think in 10-20 years time, people will be playing a film and enjoying a theatre game, and they won't even be words, it will just be how we experience stories, and I think that's real magic, I think there will be different contexts for where you enjoy that story, so we could be enjoying a theatre performance here, that guy on his phone could be part of the story that then links into the game that you're playing in some other location, and I think that magic wonder where you look around you and you go, could that be part of the story that I'm playing, without it taking you out of real life, it could be our near future.