Lee Wei Chen, an MA student from the Kingston University, London, has designed an “amusement washing machine” that combines arcade gaming with doing laundry.

Lee Wei, who is originally feom Taiwan, came up with the idea for his wacky invention while thinking of a productive use for the “wasted but enjoyable time” he spent playing video games. The 27-year-old says he realized the skills he had in the virtual world were completely useless in the real world and he decided to find a way to make them useful. That’s how he came up with the amusement washing machine, a contraption that looks like an arcade gaming station with an incorporated washing machine in the lower half. Chen linked the circuitry of the two devices, making the washing cycle dependent on the user’s gaming skills. If the gamer sucks at video games he or she will have to insert more coins in order to complete the cycle.

To turn on the amusement washing machine, users have to insert three pound coins, which also gives them three lives in the video game. If they fail to reach a certain level in the video game without losing all their lives, the machine will respond by stopping the washing cycle forcing them to insert more coins. Lee Wei Chen, who worked as a design company in taipei, before coming to Kingston University, hopes his invention will help him find a job as a designer or engineer in the UK. His teachers at the British univesrity were certainly pleased with his idea and described his work as “an extremely well-executed design concept”.

I know it sounds weird, but I think women are more excited than men about the amusement washing machine, because many of them realize it’s probably the only way to get men to do the laundry every once in a while.

Photos courtesy of Kingston University