I loved tinkering with cardboard as a kid. Cardboard trains, armor, and starships – whenever I could get my hands on some cardboard, you can bet I’d make something out of it. I even made an Imperial Star Destroyer out of illustration board in grade school, which I proudly displayed in my bedroom.
Then I got my first PlayStation, followed by my first PC, and soon those cardboard toys lay forgotten.
I never would have ever thought that cardboard and electronic gaming could go together. Then this came along:
Nintendo’s new companion product for the Switch, called the Labo, is a kit that allows you to make DIY accessories out of the included cardboard sheets. The bundled Switch cartridge contains the games for the Labo, and shows you how to assemble the cardboard together. You can then plug in the Switch’s Joy-Con controllers into these accessories to transform them into anything from remote-controlled “cars”, to pianos, to your own full-sized mecha suit.
It looks crazy, it looks fun, and of all the consoles out there, it’s something that only the Switch can do. But for me, the cherry on top is that the Labo also educational. Not only can kids rediscover the joy of building stuff out of cardboard; the Labo also shows them how digital technologies like motion-sensitive controls work while putting them together.
To me, this is a perfect example of an innovative use of technology to entertain and educate. It wouldn’t come as a surprise to me if our future engineers and technologists grew up playing with the Labo.
If only it were more affordable though – pricing for the Labo starts at USD70, more than the retail price of an AAA game. While this is understandable, given the extra materials and development costs involved, it would only be a matter of time before cheap Chinese knockoffs start flooding the market.
The Nintendo Labo will become available on April 20th. The Variety Kit is priced at USD69.99, while the Robot Kit will be sold for USD79.99.