Exertion interfaces : sports over a distance for social bonding and fun

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, School of Architecture and Planning, Program in Media Arts and Sciences, 2002.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 141-148).Social interaction is an essential part of human communication, however the participants are often miles apart. Technological advances strive to bridge the physical distances between people, but generally lack the social potential offered through activities such as sports and games. An Exertion Interface combines the strength of both: the ability of sports to connect people socially, and the ability of telecommunications to connect people over a distance. By requiring intense physical effort from the participants, an Exertion Interface creates a better social bonding experience than traditional computer interfaces. This assertion is tested through the creation of a system in which two remotely-located participants play a physically demanding ball game against each other while communicating through an overlaid life-size video-conference. A study with 56 participants showed that players who used the Exertion Interface played longer, said they got to know the other player better, had more fun, became better friends, and were happier with the transmitted audio and video quality in comparison to a control group playing the game with the same video-conferencing setup, but using a traditional keyboard interface. Exertion Interfaces, which are easy to learn, but hard to master, open a door to a new world of interfaces that facilitate social interaction between remote individuals.by Florian Mueller.S.M

DESIGNING BETTER EXERGAMES: APPLICATION OF FLOW CONCEPTS AND THE FITT PRINCIPLE TO FULL BODY EXERTION VIDEO GAMES AND FLEXIBLE CHALLENGE SYSTEMS

Exercise video games have a recognized potential for widespread use as tools for effective exercise. Current exergames do not consistently strike a successful balance between the “fun gameplay” and “effective exercise” aspects of the ideal exergame. Our research into the design of better exergames applies existing gameflow research and established exercise guidelines, such as those published by the American College of Sports Medicine, to a collection of four custom exergames: Astrojumper, Washboard, Sweet Harvest and Legerdemain implement full-body motion mechanics that support different types of exercise, and vary in intended duration of play, game complexity, and level of physical challenge. Each game also implements a difficulty adjustment system that detects player performance from in-game data and dynamically adjusts game difficulty, in order to balance between a player’s fitness level and the physical challenge presented by the game. We have evaluated the games produced by our design approach through a series of user studies on players’ physiological and psychological responses to gameplay, finding that balance between challenge types (cognitive or physical) is an important consideration along with challenge-skill balance, and further, that game mechanics able to support creativity of movement are an effective means of bridging between gameplay and exercise in order to improve the player experience

Small-Scale Exertion in Sports Video Games

Sports video games should be inherently competitive, but they fall short in providing competition between player skills. The translation of real-world physical activities to a game controller and the emphasis on statistical simulations in traditional sports video games leads to a limited opportunity for expertise development, individual differentiation, and fatigue. These are three very important aspects of real-world sports that are lacking in sports video games. One possible solution to these difficulties is to use small-scale exertion. This method requires the design of an input mechanic that requires only the use of hands and fingers (or feet). We created two small-scale exertion sports video games (Track and Field Racing and Jelly Polo) and ran four studies to compare our small-scale exertion games to traditional rate-based sports video games. Qualitative and quantitative results suggest that using small-scale exertion increases the amount of expertise development, individual differentiation, and fatigue in sports video games. Results also suggest small-scale exertion controls are more engaging than traditional rate-based controls. By using small-scale exertion to add physicality into sports video games, we are able to increase richness, competitiveness, and realism in order to create a game which is competitive, in terms of player skill, and sport-like

Development of Immersive and Interactive Virtual Reality Environment for Two-Player Table Tennis

Although the history of Virtual Reality (VR) is only about half a century old, all kinds of technologies in the VR field are developing rapidly. VR is a computer generated simulation that replaces or augments the real world by various media. In a VR environment, participants have a perception of “presence”, which can be described by the sense of immersion and intuitive interaction. One of the major VR applications is in the field of sports, in which a life-like sports environment is simulated, and the body actions of players can be tracked and represented by using VR tracking and visualisation technology. In the entertainment field, exergaming that merges video game with physical exercise activities by employing tracking or even 3D display technology can be considered as a small scale VR. For the research presented in this thesis, a novel realistic real-time table tennis game combining immersive, interactive and competitive features is developed. The implemented system integrates the InterSense tracking system, SwissRanger 3D camera and a three-wall rear projection stereoscopic screen. The Intersense tracking system is based on ultrasonic and inertia sensing techniques which provide fast and accurate 6-DOF (i.e. six degrees of freedom) tracking information of four trackers. Two trackers are placed on the two players’ heads to provide the players’ viewing positions. The other two trackers are held by players as the racquets. The SwissRanger 3D camera is mounted on top of the screen to capture the player’

Development of immersive and interactive virtual reality environment for two-player table tennis

Although the history of Virtual Reality (VR) is only about half a century old, all kinds of technologies in the VR field are developing rapidly. VR is a computer generated simulation that replaces or augments the real world by various media. In a VR environment, participants have a perception of “presence”, which can be described by the sense of immersion and intuitive interaction. One of the major VR applications is in the field of sports, in which a life-like sports environment is simulated, and the body actions of players can be tracked and represented by using VR tracking and visualisation technology. In the entertainment field, exergaming that merges video game with physical exercise activities by employing tracking or even 3D display technology can be considered as a small scale VR. For the research presented in this thesis, a novel realistic real-time table tennis game combining immersive, interactive and competitive features is developed. The implemented system integrates the InterSense tracking system, SwissRanger 3D camera and a three-wall rear projection stereoscopic screen. The Intersense tracking system is based on ultrasonic and inertia sensing techniques which provide fast and accurate 6-DOF (i.e. six degrees of freedom) tracking information of four trackers. Two trackers are placed on the two players’ heads to provide the players’ viewing positions. The other two trackers are held by players as the racquets. The SwissRanger 3D camera is mounted on top of the screen to capture the player’sEThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Feedback control for exergames

The concept of merging exercise equipment with video games, known as exergaming, has the potential to be one of the main tools used in addressing the current rising obesity epidemic. Existing research shows that exergaming can help improve fitness and additionally motivate people to become more active. The two key elements of attractiveness - how much people want to play or use the exergaming system; and effectiveness – how effective the exergaming system is in actually increasing or maintaining physical fitness, need to be maximised to obtain the best outcomes from an exergaming system; we put this forward as the Dual Flow Model. As part of the development of our exergame system we required the use of a heart rate response simulator. We discovered that there was no existing quantitative model appropriate for the simulation of heart rate responses to exercise. In order to overcome this, we developed our own model for the simulation of heart rate response. Based on our model, we developed a simulation tool known as the Virtual Body Simulator, which we used during our exergame development. Subsequent verification of the model using the trial data indicated that the model accurately represented exergame player heart rate responses to a level that was more than sufficient for exergame research and development. In our experiment, attractiveness was controlled by manipulation of the game difficulty to match the skill of the player. The balance of challenge and skills to facilitate the attainment of the flow state, as described by Csikszentmihalyi (1975), is widely accepted as a motivator for various activities. Effectiveness, in our experiments was controlled through exercise intensity. Exercise intensity was adjusted based on the player‟s heart rate to maintain intensity within the limits of the ASCM Guidelines (ACSM, 2006) for appropriate exercise intensity levels. We tested the Dual Flow Model by developing an exergame designed to work in four different modes; created by selectively varying the control mechanisms for exercise workout intensity and game mental challenge. We then ran a trial with 21 subjects who used the exergame system in each of the different modes. The trial results in relation to the Dual Flow Model showed that we developed an excellent intensity control system based on heart rate monitoring; successfully managing workout intensity for the subjects. However, we found that the subjects generally found the intensity controlled sessions less engaging, being closer to the flow state in the sessions where the intensity was controlled based on heart rate. The dynamic difficulty adjustment system developed for our exergame also did not appear to help facilitate attainment of the flow state. Various theories are put forward as to why this may have occurred. We did find that challenge control had an impact on the actual intensity of the workout. When the intensity was not managed, the challenge control modes were generally closer to the desired heart rates. While the difference was not statistically very large, there was a strong correlation between the intensity of the different modes. This correlation was also present when looking at the players‟ perception of intensity, indicating that the difference was enough to be noticed by the subjects

An aesthetics of touch: investigating the language of design relating to form

How well can designers communicate qualities of touch? This paper presents evidence that they have some capability to do so, much of which appears to have been learned, but at present make limited use of such language. Interviews with graduate designer-makers suggest that they are aware of and value the importance of touch and materiality in their work, but lack a vocabulary to fully relate to their detailed explanations of other aspects such as their intent or selection of materials. We believe that more attention should be paid to the verbal dialogue that happens in the design process, particularly as other researchers show that even making-based learning also has a strong verbal element to it. However, verbal language alone does not appear to be adequate for a comprehensive language of touch. Graduate designers-makers’ descriptive practices combined non-verbal manipulation within verbal accounts. We thus argue that haptic vocabularies do not simply describe material qualities, but rather are situated competences that physically demonstrate the presence of haptic qualities. Such competencies are more important than groups of verbal vocabularies in isolation. Design support for developing and extending haptic competences must take this wide range of considerations into account to comprehensively improve designers’ capabilities