Scientists are developing sensor- based computer games to get children moving while they think. CLAIRE O'CONNELLreports
IT’S A scene many young families have faced over the dismal summer – rain stops play outside, and soon the indoor attention turns to computer games that engage kids in little more physical activity than twiddling their fingers while hunched over a console.
Of course, innovations such as the Wii have helped get kids off the couch, using sensors to transform living rooms into virtual tennis courts, boxing rings and even snowy pistes.
But an Irish research consortium has been exploring computer games at a new level, developing approaches that get young players moving across larger spaces and engaging with each other.
It’s all down to the most simple of sensors, nothing too grand, explains Prof Alan Smeaton, deputy director of Clarity, a Science Foundation Ireland centre that links Dublin City University, University College Dublin and Tyndall National Institute in Cork.
“We do all kinds of complex measurements here on phosphates and water quality and we look at the pH of sweat – it’s all very high end,” says Smeaton. “But sometimes the simplest of sensors can give you applications that you wouldn’t have thought of before. So we started to think about what could we do based on games.”
Out of that grew two approaches – one based on sheep-herding where players run around a virtual “field” steering sheep into a central pen, the other on a dance-mat that encourages children to jump on the correct answer.
And how did they iron out teething problems with the new computer games? By recruiting crowds of kids to put them through their paces – once a week, participants in DCU’s summer camp have been visiting the labs to put the game to the ultimate road test.
“It has been known on this corridor all summer that Tuesday morning is not a good time to get any work done because of the screaming and roaring,” says Smeaton, as we walk into a sparse room with a large screen at one end showing an animated field. In a few minutes the de-cluttered lab will be full of seven and eight year olds running around in pairs or egging on players from the sidelines, but for now he demonstrates how the game works, popping a small gadget called Ubisense into his pocket.
“It has got accelerometers and sensors in it,” he explains. “When [Ubisense] is moved it emits pulses many times a second and those are picked up by [receivers], which use Inter Cert trigonometry to calculate where you are.”
The system maps Smeaton onto the onscreen field and tracks him as he dashes around the room, chasing virtual sheep into a central pen that corresponds to a marked section on the floor.
“This is great as a little toy but at the back of it we are scientists and we have been working with School of Health and Human Performance to figure out how the game should evolve,” he says of the system, developed by Marc Gowing.
“Getting the sheep into the pen builds spatial awareness and co-ordination, but you can then progress that further by insisting the kids only move backwards, or hopping on one foot.”
Nor does it take long for the seven and eight-year-old testers to learn the basics – within minutes of filing into the darkened lab from the summer camp they are working in pairs to herd the sheep around the field with plenty of sideline instruction from their peers.
But while the sensors are cheap, the cost of the indoor prototype runs to thousands of euro, making it too pricey at the moment for general use.
Less costly, but no less active, is the other “exerlearning” game, which involves a souped up electronic dance mat. Instead of throwing shapes to music, individual players jump on particular squares on the mat to answer maths problems or to spell out answers to questions.
“Again it’s simple sensors but it’s surrounded by an application that gets the crowd going,” says Smeaton of the system, developed by Brendan O’Huiginn at UCD, who used off-the-shelf or free components and software.
And as with the sheep chasing, the children immediately engage with the dance mat setup, shouting out answers to the player in the hotspot and cheering as the scores go up.
As well as having fun, the testers have been helping to improve the games, explains Smeaton. “We are not keeping data on the kids, we are not storing any information apart from the high score – and there’s plenty of competition for that. But we are learning how the game works and to maximise it.”
And where Smeaton really sees the sensor-based computer games coming into their own is using differential GPS to track players as they move around outdoors.
There’s even a project that uses sensor-kitted wireless headphones to construct a virtual soundscape that changes as the player moves around.
“We all have very good sound source localisation to about five degrees and this can reach the same level,” says Smeaton. “It can pick up which way you are facing and we can generate the correct right-left balance. So your changing location is picked up and adjusted so you hear these sounds.”
And while the large headset is still somewhat clunky and under development, Smeaton envisages it becoming as streamlined as an MP3-player-sized gadget with ear buds that allows the player to navigate by sound through a virtual soundscape such as an orchestra, maze or zoo.
“It’s really about the limits of your creativity,” he says.