From the 19th to the 21st of June was the 2015 Tokyo Toy Show, and there were also some projects dedicated to augmented reality; the Toyota Camatte particularly stood out.
For a so innovative project, it was just matter of time before the use of one of the most avantgarde technologies, augmented reality; in fact from this Toy Show edition, Toyota thought to an easier and more spectacular way to customize the Camatte: the first thing to do is to sit in the car and take a picture, then, through the Camatte Vision app and a tablet, the kids can chose the look of the car, mixing and matching 13 types of body and 12 colors and also to see a rendering of their customized car run on a (true) miniature course with their family onboard!
The project Camatte was launched in 2012 to interest the kids to the automotive world, getting them used to driving and showing them the joy of owning a car. The car company, so, created a little car, complete in every part and fully working, that can be drove by kids with the help of the parents and also easily customizable on the basis of the children’s imagination. So green lights to pink cars, hot dog trucks and purple fire engines!
The actual version of Camatte is called Hajime, a word that means “beginning”, but it’s not really the first one: from 2012 Toyota presented six other models (Sora, Daichi, Takumi, 57s and 57s Sports), all working like true cars. At this Tokyo Toy Show it wasn’t possible to drive the model, but the families had the possibility to sit inside to take the picture to modify with the app.
The name of the car and the project was “Camatte” not just without reason but because this word in japanese means “care” and it’s intended as “taking care of others” and, of course, “taking care of the car”.