Earlier this month, we blogged that participants at a New York University (NYU) event called the "Stupid Hackathon" had created something remarkable: a vape-embedded Tamagotchi-style virtual pet that dies if the user fails to keep puffing.
We got in touch with the inventors behind the Vape-o-Gotchi: NYC-based romantic partners Rebecca Xun and Lucia Camacho, who explained to Futurism in an interview that their project began as an idea that they saw circulating online — and they decided to make it into a cursed reality.
The idea for a vape-embedded Tamagotchi device has "floated around a lot on Twitter in the past," said Xun. "But I pitched it independently to Lucia last year as a potential project we could work on together."
Xun started vaping last year, she said, as a way to begin the process of quitting cigarettes. She also has a "bunch of friends who vape," many of whom "are very attached to their vapes." But she's not naive about vaping's well-documented risks, and began to wonder if "gamifying" her nicotine use might help her disincentivize it. In the first iteration of the project, hitting the vape would actually murder the digital pet, and thus would ideally work to guilt-trip the user into not inhaling.
"There's a big trend of parental locking yourself," Camacho added. "I'm locked out of certain apps behind a password that Rebecca knows, so I don't scroll Instagram too much. It would be cool if you could have that for nicotine."
But then, explained Xun, Camacho "found this Stupid Hackathon. And we were like, it'd be kind of funnier to be evil."
And with that, their "evil-mode" Vape-o-Gotchi, which instead rewards users for vaping, was born. (The pair's darkly satirical pitch was that America is "in crisis" due to the year-over-year decrease in kids vaping between 2021 and 2023, a supposed calamity their device can help correct.)
To make the device, Xun and Camacho leaned on complementary skillsets. Xun is an alumnus of the social media giant Meta, and her background falls squarely on the software side. Camacho has deeper experience in hardware: she was an engineer at Anduril, the defense contractor known for its military drones, though she quit last Spring.
"From the electronic side," said Camacho, building the device is conceptually "very easy." It's "just measuring whether the vape is on or off," she explained, and "keeping track of that in a little computer."
The code for the game, meanwhile, tracks the pet's health and the voltage of the vape, and "will change the animation or the health, depending on when you hit it, or if you let time elapse," explained Xun.
To be clear, in case anyone from Tamagotchi's creator Bandai is reading: the digital pet element of the device isn't an actual Tamagotchi. Xun and Camacho instead cooked up a simpler, Tamagotchi-inspired critter. (The pair "thought maybe simpler is better" for now, said Camacho.)
Unlike traditional Tamagotchis, which have multiple care "meters" that users have to satisfy, this little guy has just one need: relentless vape clouds.
"It only survives off the vape," said Xun, though she caveated: "at the moment."
There was a bit of trial and error in the invention process, though. They burned through a few vapes, first trying to use Geek Bar's Pulse model. But that didn't quite work out, and they instead landed on Elf Bar's popular BC5000. All in all, they said, they spent about 80 bucks on vaping hardware, and another 50 or so on easily-accessible hobby electronics to pull the device together. Elsewhere, they relied on Camacho's 3D printer to whip up a few pieces.
"It looks really janky, but it actually takes quite a while to get everything to fit together, and print and reprint lots of components," reflected the former Anduril engineer. "My 3D printer also broke halfway through, so that was a whole other thing."
The project is already improved from where it was at the Hackathon. There, the hardware component had to be hooked up to a larger computer, which housed the virtual pet; now, though the device is still bulky and its electronic insides visible, it can be held in one hand. It can also hold a charge on its own, thanks to the fact that vapes are battery-powered.
But pushing the device forward, which the pair is eager to do, will get increasingly more complicated.
"We've run into a point where it is now hard," said Camacho, pointing to harder-to-solve problems like waterproofing and overall durability.
Cuteness, they noted, is also top of mind.
"This is surprisingly nice to hold in your hand, but it is a little bulky with the wires now," said Xun, holding the prototype to the camera. "It would be nice to have a more enclosed, nice, cute, egg-shaped vape."
"I think she needs to get cuter," nodded Camacho, referring to the animated digital pet. "Have, like, big eyes or something."
They're also still looking to build in a "good" mode that disincentivizes vaping, as they'd originally conceptualized.
"When it's in good mode, it would be nice to track how often you're vaping, and then just straight up not turn on if you've hit your limit for the day," said Xun.
As for what's next for the duo, beyond their Vape-o-Gotchi endeavors? Xun says she's looking to join a smaller company, ideally one working with civic technology alongside government, education, or nonprofits — or, she says, she'd love to work in a tech role somewhere in the arts, maybe in film. As for Camacho, she's focusing on personal projects for now.
"If we want to distribute [the Vape-o-Gotchi] or something like that, I don't think we're totally clear on it," said Xun, noting that she and Camacho have considered publishing their findings so that other folks can build their own versions of the device. "But I think right now, we just want to improve what we have, and it is a fun project."
In the meantime, they're both continuing to recover from the Hackathon, where their quest to keep their Vape-o-Gotchi alive throughout the event took a noticeable physical toll.
"We did not feel rewarded at the end of the Hackathon," said Xun. "Because we tested it so much, we were both so diseased from vaping."
More on the Vape-o-Gotchi: There's a Vape With a Tamagotchi Inside It That Dies If You Stop Puffing
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