7 Bounces
An AR physics puzzle in your own backyard. Set the force, angle the phone, and bounce the ball into the crate exactly the right number of times.
The Curiosity
Augmented reality kept being used to put furniture in rooms. What if it put physics in them instead?
The Build
Built with Niantic Lightship for its AR template competition in 2022, then published on the Google Play Store that autumn. Levels anchor to whatever surface you are standing on: a plank to bounce the ball off, a crate to land it in, and a count you have to hit exactly. Seven levels, one bounce up to seven.
The force slider is only half of the aim. The other half is you. Where you stand matters, and the angle you hold the phone at matters more — tilt it and the launch angle tilts with it, so the same force sends the ball on a completely different arc. You aim with your body as much as with your thumb. Expert Mode makes that unforgiving: one failed attempt drops the stage back to a single bounce.
The competition wanted something to discover, so there is a hidden level. Clear all seven on Earth and the game takes you off it. Same plank, same crate, a fraction of the gravity, and every trajectory you had learned quietly stops working.
The Result
The first thing the workshop shipped to an app store, and the reason the GS mark exists in three dimensions: the app icon is the same shape.