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Android Experiments winners include an autonomous tracking robot, notification cards game and 3D controller


A couple of months ago, Google launched an Android Experiments competition. Three winners would win a trip to this year’s Google I/O conference, including a $5,000 budget towards lodging and food, while five runners-up would each receive a Nexus 6P. Google has now announced who those winners are, and updated its Experiments page with the winning projects…

Among the three winners was a really cool mini autonomous vehicle/robot which uses a mounted phone to follow a particular object and onboard IR sensors to avoid obstacles. The Nexus 5X was programmed to recognize an object of a specific color and then remain a distance from that object. If it moved away, the robot kicks in to gear and chases it. If the ball came close, it backs off.

Another winning project was a cool notification card game called ‘Hungermoji’ which you can download from the Play Store for free. It uses Android’s notification cards to show characters, and the aim is to swipe away bombs and keep your emoji fed with fruit. The third winner was a 3D controller which combines the sensors in a smartphone with the power of Chromecast, enabling users to manipulate onscreen content with their phone:

A purposeful second-screen experience that uses your phone to augment the available sensors of Chromecast hardware. Plus with the expansion of Sensor Hub stack, we can really see this as a viable way to interact with all kinds of Cast apps.

The three developers who created these experiments will be heading to San Francisco this week to attend Google I/O. Of course, these three weren’t the only interesting projects. The runners-up included a really unusual, but fluid launcher called Lens Launcher (Google Play link), a motorcycle safety project and 3D-based authentication, among others.

Be sure to check them all out on the Android Experiments page, and stay tuned here at 9to5Google for more in-depth Google I/O coverage later this week.

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