Sharkbites:
Sharkbites is a 3D shark tank where users can send in themselves as bait via text message and try and survive a shark attack.

How it works:
When you walk up to the installation you see a shark tank with a hungry shark swimming around. Your goal as a user is to send in yourself as bait, survive the shark hunt, and win an item from the surf store.

Where would I see this?
As an installation in a surf shop like Ron Jon, Billabong, or Jacks's surfboards.

How does it work?
Users text in "bait" by sending their name
to baitme@sharkbit.es. Once the message is sent, they'll see their name onscreen and a new fish will be dropped into the shark tank.

What next?
Only one fish will survive the shark attack, the rest will be devoured. The survivor will swim to the bottom of the tank to discover its prize.

What's the prize?
An item from the surf store like surf wax,
a watch, clothes, maybe even a board.

How do you prove you won?
The winner will get a text message back
on their phone with a redeemable code.
The store can access the users code and
verify it matches up with the winning phone
number they sent the text message in from.

Who's it for?
Ages 9-99. Anyone with a cell phone who wants to win free stuff or possibly get eaten by a shark.

How was this built?
The shark, fish, and environment were built using Maya. The motion and interactive elements were created in Virtools. The cell phone input is processed using PHP and Mysql.

Who are you?
I'm a grad student at NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program. This project came out of two courses I took: 3D Marriage of the Virtual and Real and Ubiquitous Computing for Mobile Devices.

Press:
A Sneek Peak Into The Mobile Future