Human Asteroids

Posted on May 30, 2013

Just when we thought there couldn’t be anything cooler in the world of Asteroids, there’s this:

It’s Human Asteroids, a project by Two Bit Circus for their proposed STEAM Carnival, designed to turn kids on to Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math.

Human Asteroids uses a Microsoft Kinect to track the player in a rolling chair, who becomes the spaceship. Asteroids are projected on the ground with lasers, and the player fires with a smartphone.

The player in the video is Nolan Bushnell, founder of Atari.

The STEAM Carnival has a Kickstarter campaign going until midnight on June 2, 2013. If successful (and at the time of writing, they’re close), they plan to take the Carnival on the road at several major west coast American cities.

[UPDATE] This story has been making the rounds today, and Two Bit Circus has just passed its fundraising goal of $100,000, with two days still to go.

LA Times Article: Atari Reboot

Posted on August 07, 2010

Atari was one of the original video game leaders, although the company had all but disappeared during the last few decades.  It was sold to various companies around the world, eventually ending up in France.  However, starting around a year ago, we started seeing rumblings of a corporate rebirth.  Licensing stepped up, with a Universal Studios film deal for Asteroids among the more news-worthy items.

Recently, Atari’s website has been growing, offering both classic games for online play, plus the announcement of new initiatives, including the re-imagining of older titles (again, Asteroids).  Then, with echoes of Steve Jobs’s return to a floundering Apple, there came the news that Atari founder Nolan Bushnell was back on the board of directors.

The LA Times has just published a fairly comprehensive article detailing the past and future plans for the company.  Read it here:

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-ct-atari-20100803,0,3552511.story?track=rss