#HTE

Augmented Reality Climbing

While it’s possible to rearrange the handholds on an indoor climbing wall, it’s not terribly easy. But now a coder named Jon Cheng has come up with a bright way to instantly freshen up the climbing wall experience using augmented reality.

The tech is not NASA level, which makes it even more appealing. Cheng pulled off the following demonstration of his “Time Trial” game using just coding, projectors, a camera sensor and a laptop:

“A lot of people have been contacting us about Time Trial,” says Jesse O'Driscoll of Brooklyn Boulders, the co-working/climbing space that we covered here. “This is augmented reality like you’ve never seen before—it turns rock climbing into an interactive video game.”

Interesting, no? And I think the surface of this combination has yet to be scratched. While the current version of Cheng’s projections might not be Super Mario Bros IRL, adding a bit of digital interest and mutability to the patterns could prove tantalizing for the videogame crowd—and this is certainly better exercise.