A Colorful Smartphone Controlled Fairy Tale Machine

Niklas Roy and Felix Fisgus have created “Smart Fairy Tale”, a smart storytelling machine that is controlled remotely through a QR scan on a smartphone. A rolling red ball triggers the story process through stops and starts along the way, leading the path to a narrative.

A little red ball rolls through a maze of transparent pipes. Interrupting light barriers along its way, the ball triggers the movements of numerous animatronics. Different track switches inside the pipe system determine the path of the ball, leading to a variety of stories that are being told by the apparatus. Visitors can operate the installation via their smartphones.

The installation was built with toys and other items that were donated by the community and local school children drew a great deal of the scenery, making the project community-based.

We didn’t just want to make an installation for the public but also include the public in the creation of the machine. Therefore, we asked the citizens of Wolfsburg to donate building materials. Specifically, we requested used and abandoned toys. …We took everything happily, as long as it was playful!

This colorful interactive installation is on display at the Phaeno Science Center in Wolfsburg, Germany.

Being placed behind a large window, inside the museum’s so-called “idea space”, visitors can see the installation from the “cone hall”, which is the name of the public area beneath the building. Luckily, Phæno has a proper PA installed inside the cone hall’s ceiling. Using the Dante protocol, a few small lavalier microphones transmit the machine’s sound directly to the speakers above the visitor’s heads.