I know this is something of a daring leap onto an out of control bandwagon, but the fact is that there's something of a Pokemon GO epidemic going on at element14 Towers.
And we're a bit fascinated about how you guys might be able to help us to game the Pokemon Go game.
The facts are these.
Pokemon Eggs
In case you (somewhat understandably) haven't succumbed to the digital charms of Pokemon GO yet, here's how the egg feature works.
Dotted around the real world are locations called Pokestops. Among their various uses within the games, these are locations where players can collect Pokemon eggs. These eggs are also sometimes awarded as you achieve new levels within the game (much like our levels (presumably where Nintendo got the idea)).
Eggs are hatched by physically walking a predetermined distance. It could be two, five or ten kilometres, depending on the egg. The app is clever enough to figure out whether you're moving at walking speeds, or faster, so you can't dupe it by launching the game on your phone while driving to work, for instance.
Egg Hatching Machines
So What I'd like to challenge you guys with is coming up with a design for a machine, including the parts required, to artificially hatch a Pokemon GO egg. It'll need to keep your smartphone in motion at close to walking speeds, and move it enough far enough for the app to be able to monitor the distance via GPS; which could, location depending, be a bit of an inaccurate signal.
Only really looking for concepts here, but if anyone actually feels like building their machine, that'd be especially awesome!
While you're working on that, I'll look into what kind of swag I can get my hands on to reward the most inventive of our potential Pokemon project pirates!
