Since the relatively lukewarm introduction of Microsoft’s Kinect into the gaming community, the motion camera’s most interesting projects have arguably been user-made hacks that have nothing to do with Xbox games at all.  And of those hacks, this is arguably one of the coolest.

Design I/O have designed a new virtual puppet studio for children, using the Kinect to actively control on-screen puppets. The project, dubbed Puppet Parade is unique in that it allows children to walk right up to the screen and interact with the puppets through actions like feeding or petting them.  According to the designers, this unique setup

Allows children to perform alongside the puppets, blurring the line between the ‘audience’ and the puppeteers and creating an endlessly playful dialogue between the children in the space and the children puppeteering the creatures.

A slogan from an old Xbox Live ad states, “it’s good to play together.”  This new project has struck that chord rather profoundly.  

[via Mashable]

-Patrick Lindsey