Spy Rod

Solo project at Royal College of Art
Concept and built in 2005
 A presented work at the Mattel Design Summit in Los Angeles

Brief
Children are powerless. They use toys to fantasise about their potential.
What would a kid like to be able to do?
How can objects be used to extend kids abilities?

Description
SpyRod is a camera, which has a long stick and fishing line. Children can see and record the view through the camera with a viewing box.

There are four main things they can do with this camera:
1) Explore a small world
The camera can give them a very low viewpoint and show them a world of small creatures. They can see small things as very big things.
2) Explore a giant world
The long stick enables them to have a higher viewpoint. They can experience looking down at things that they usually look up.
3) Discovery
The small camera can show them the sight in a narrow place. The light on the camera gives them clear images in dark spaces, and kids can explore the places which they can not go into and discover new things through the camera. The tool helps them to explore their usual places with a different point of view.
4) Showing your world to people
The camera and viewer assist them in showing their idea or world to people by looking at the view screen together or filming what they see through the camera to watch later.

By exploring the potential of new small cheap cameras, and by rethinking how children use them, they stop being cameras and become third eyes. It gives children the superpower to turn the ordinary into the extraordinary.

SpyRod (2005) from yumiko on Vimeo.

The camera comes with the rod and viewing box that wirelessly connected to the camera to show and record the view.