Winners and Losers was a four-week program organised by School of Machines, Making and Make-believe during summer 2018 in Berlin. The idea was to contemplate on the concepts of “winning” and “losing” and to create experimental games in the form of physical artifacts and installations. Alice Stewart was teaching the first two weeks of the program and Niklas and I continued as mentors for the last weeks, focusing on mechatronic games.

We started by exploring electromagnetic phenomena and playing around with different kinds of motors and solenoids. Arduino along with motor drivers was used as a platform for controlling movement. We also took apart some old devices and toys in order to see how they could be used for building mechatronic games.

Gradually ideas started to develop and four experimental game concepts began to take form. One of the groups was inspired by a pink, plastic toy pig equipped with wings. The pig was combined with a DIY controller that worked by blowing air into it. The game’s idea was to fly the “Pigarus” into the sun, following the legendary Greek tale. Imaginary creatures were also central in another project, the Bacteria Game. As the name implies, the idea of this game was to move tiny, animated bacteria using a microscope as a controller.

The third game took the form of a classical slot machine, replacing the fruit and dollar symbols with poetic expressions. This game reflected on our shared experiences in the Winners and Losers program. The last game was also inspired by a classic game: a memory game where pairs of cards need to be matched. The cards were replaced by a burger-array, where each burger had a soundtrack that encouraged the player to reflect on eating meat.

In the end of the Winners & Losers program all the created works were presented in the LIEBIG12 gallery space.

Special thanks to Rachel Uwa for inviting us again to her wonderful School of Machines, Making and Make-believe.