Each year, New York University holds a free and open-to-the-public Spring Show showing off dozens of projects from its Interactive Telecommunications Program students. The projects on display include ideas like a flying printer (Blimpter), a plug-and-play toy for teaching children stop-motion animation, and a mobile app that lets you send high fives using a phone's accelerometer.

I picked out three of the game projects from this year's ITP Spring Show that I found most interesting (you can see my highlights from last year's show here): an electromechanical game based on the running of the bulls, a crowd-sourcing crime prevention game for kids, and a war game played between two human/computer teams in both physical and virtual space.

Running Of The Bulls (pictured) by Greg Borenstein and Scott Wayne Indiana

In this electromechanical game, players control a figure dodging a pack of mechanical bulls as they stampede down a narrow, miniature street inspired by Pamplona, Spain, which is famous for holding these running of the bulls events. To win, players simply need to make sure their figure isn't gored as the swaying bulls pass the poor runner.

A video demonstrating the game:

The designers explained how it all works:

"The linear motion of the bulls is powered by a stepper motor pulling a six foot long timing belt. That belt moves a car made of pulleys and shafts that rides on two tracks built out of 1/2" metal pipe. That motion will pull the bulls towards the player avatar. Simultaneously, the bulls will move side-to-side via servos attached to Scotch Yoke mechanisms and running a simple simulation of the logic of a stampeding bull (if you get too close to a wall or another bull, reverse course).

The player will control his avatar via a joystick which will turn a servo to move their avatar from side-to-side to dodge out of the way of the bulls. There will be a small CCTV camera installed behind the player's avatar hooked up to a the screen on which the player watches the game. If any of the bulls collide with the avatar, the plater loses. If all the bulls pass without a collision, the player wins."

Snapscouts by David Phillips and Joel Leimer

This Android app (iPhone version coming soon) has children earning badges and competing with their friends by patrolling their neighborhood and taking pictures of suspicious going-ons. Players can submit reports of crimes or suspicious activities to Snapscouts's servers, and a team of trained security professionals will review the images for possible illegal activity.

Snapscouts's developers provided this (probably?) tongue-in-cheek background for the game:

"We made SnapScouts because America is more threatened today than it ever has been before. We made SnapScouts because terrorism knows no boundaries. We made SnapScouts because America is the land of freedom, and the only way to check the government is to distribute power to the local level.

We made SnapScouts to empower real Americans to connect with one another and expose those moments of truth that we all know, but can't always say out loud. We made SnapScouts because we love America."

Deadmeat by Paul Paradiso

In this war game, two players are each teamed up with a computer partner before entering opposite ends of a maze. Both players wears a mask or helmet that obscures their vision but provides them with directions from their computer partner. That's not the only twist!:

"The physical space in which Deadmeat is played is essentially a maze. Each player starts at opposites ends and must reach their opponents base to win. Each player is blinded and must follow instructions from their computer partner in order to move about the space.

Instructions are delivered by lights representing forwards, backwards, left and right in the players helmet. In the virtual space each computer player has a gun which they can shoot at their opposing human player. Each time a player is hit they are weakened and become more susceptible to instructions from opposing computer.

When the game starts, 90% of the instructions a player receives will come from their computer partner. But as they are struck by their opponent computer this percentage will drop until the player is under the complete control of their opponent computer. The players do not know when they have been injured and therefore must follow all instructions received"

You can see all of the 2010 ITP Spring Show projects at NYU's site.