Coming to a Laundromat Near You: Video Game-controlled Washing Machines!

Doing laundry may no longer be the boring, meaningless task it’s been for the past several hundred centuries. In fact, successfully getting your digs clean in the future might depend on how well coordinated you are…and a handful of extra laundry change.

Introducing the “arcade washing machine” by Lee Wei Chen, a Taiwanese graduate student at Kingston University, London.

Chen’s creation combines a traditional standup arcade game with a front-loading coin-operated washing machine, adding both fun and a real challenge to the menial task of washing clothes.

What used to be as easy as the push of a button now requires manipulating a steering wheel, a gear shifter and two buttons.

Chen, 27, came up with the idea after contemplating a more productive use for the “wasted but enjoyable time” he spent playing video games. After realizing the skills he had acquired in the virtual world were impractical in real life, he embarked on a quest to make them useful.

By linking the circuitry of the two devices, the washing cycle is dependent on the user’s gaming skills. Thus, if the gamer sucks at video games, he or she will have to insert more coins in order to complete the cycle.

This may not be the most ingenious machine ever created, but I dare think it’ll be as hard any longer for wives to get their husbands and the kids off the sofa to lend a hand in the laundry room.

(Link)

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