Roboscuba, a robotic submarine that allows you to dive with real fishes, launched with a handful of fishes in its tank. I got a chance to meet up with Thomas Tan, Founder of MakeAffinity, who showed me a demo of how the entire thing works. I must say that it was pretty interesting controlling a submerged robot, while looking at the fishes, which were put in there by the community (yes you can add your own real life fishes in the tank).

It is also great to know that this is the first “non-MakeAffinity” robot plugged into the system. It’s a significant milestone for Thomas as all the current robots in the system were put in by himself. MakeAffinity’s platform is designed such a way that anyone with their own robots can plug into the MakeAffinity’s API and get their robots on MakeAffinity’s platform. Users around the world can play with these robots by buying credits. The revenue earned from the credits will be split between MakeAffinity and the owner of the robot. Before we get into the platform and talk about why it is a game changer, let’s first understand the merger of offline and online environments.

The Merger of Environments – Offline and Online
The concept of merging both the physical and virtual environment isn’t entirely new. The notion of plugging yourself to a terminal and controlling something  virtually, from a remote location, has been discussed in science fiction books and demonstrated in research labs. The Huggy Pajamas project by the Mixed Reality Labs is one such example. This concept of “merger of environments” has moved to mobile as well, whereby virtual environments are augmented onto real ones. Augmented reality, the new hot feature in mobile applications, accomplishes that by merging online content with the offline environment. BuUuk’s new iPhone app demonstrates that really well.

How is MakeAffinity of Value Then?
The concept of “merger of environments” is particularly interesting for MakeAffinity and Roboscuba. For example, one could fit the technology in MakeAffinity with Roboscuba and apply it to tourism industry, whereby tourists can get a sneak preview of the Great Barrier Reef to entice them to sign up for traveling packages in Australia. Ever tried firing a GPMG? Well, theoretically you can hook a robot to a gun, connect it to MakeAffinity, and people can buy credits to shoot the gun virtually at a range. All this done in a controlled and safe environment. Similar experiential concepts are already being done. For example Joker Racer, a  Japanese startup recently featured on TechCrunch, combines Wi-Fi-enabled model cars equipped with a GPS so that users can virtually race cars through their browsers. This could potentially revolutionize how people play and socialize online.

Realizing this dream is something Thomas hopes to achieve through this platform,which he developed himself. It is  an uphill task, considering that robots will have to be made by users first and then “plugged” into the system. Roboscuba is a first step in that direction and time will only tell if this model will work or not.