ROCKLIN-
A Rocklin robotics company helped make a Super Bowl commercial possible.
Parallax sold some crucial parts for a life size Pac-Man game featured in a Bud Light commercial set to air on Sunday. (Scroll down to watch the ad)
Parallax engineer Daniel Harris said most of his company’s products are used in educational robots.
“They can pick up a kit from us, assemble it, and teach them step by step what each piece of an electronic circuit does and how to program,” Harris said.
But this year, a few of their chips will be used instead to sell beer.
Parallax designed a micro controller which it sold about a dozen of to Legacy Effects in Los Angeles, which worked on special effects in movies like “Jurassic World” and “Iron Man.”
Legacy Effects used Parallax’s hardware to make the ghosts which case the man through a maze in the ad.
“The chip also reads some accelerometer sensors. Depending on how the actor, the person inside the suit, is moving, the eyes will automatically change direction,” Harris told FOX40.
According to Harris, the ghosts themselves are not actually robots, but in fact women on roller skates in costume.
Still the chips which make them look like a video game were all put together at Parallax’s Rocklin offices.
Harris said the company is proud to see their technology used on the national stage and he hopes the exposure will help them grow.
“Ideally I’d like to see our chip, our device in use in all sorts of industrial, commercial applications,” Harris said.
Parallax will be displaying some of their robots this weekend at the Discovery Museum in Sacramento as part of the Mars Rover Weekend exhibit, open from noon till four.
