Home

Research

Publications

Education

Student Projects

Tilde Bekker – Student Projects

2010

 

Bread and Games – Robert Huitema

Embodied social networks for older adults – Renée van den Berg / Jan Belon / Sijme Geurts / Jelmer Siekmans

Shaping Play – Gijs Houdijk / Roel van Deventer / Niek Muris / Dirk van Erve / Koen Verbruggen

Motivating children during physical education classes – Marcel Ton

Repetitive Curiosity to stimulate movement - Rob Tieben

 

2006 - 2009

 

A methodology for Open Innovation - Communication between older adults –

Supporting learning and Sports with Swinx -

Intelligent Play Objects for Children - Innovative Sport Games for Children –

Props for Physical Play

 

Repetitive Curiosity to stimulate movement - Rob Tieben (2010)

Persuasive technology uses technology to change behaviour, through persuasion and social influence. Interventions are usually motivating on the short-term, but lose this attraction after a few encounters. Games show to possess a strong longterm motivational pull, both to return and to keep playing. The high motivation for games is caused by different factors, with mystery being an important one. The mystery in a game creates curiosity in the player, and creates the pull to return and the motivation to keep playing. Goal of this project is to study if and how these mystery elements can be used to persuade people to move. Mystery in games is created according to certain principles; these will be translated into proof-of-concepts and guidelines for persuasive technology. Secondary school youth are used as target group, and secondary schools as context.

A methodology for Open Innovation – Eva Hopma (2009)

Stakeholders in an open innovation process have different goals and resources

The project consisted of developing a theoretical framework and a tool to support various stakeholders in an open innovation process. Eva developed her approach and tool in the context of a case study in which we examined a service for the mobility of older adults, using electric cars in the North of The Netherlands.

Communication between older adults (2009)

Rob Tieben

The aging of the population in developed countries is a well known trend. For both economic and personal reasons (van Heuvelen et al., 2000), it is preferred that these elderly live independent as long as possible. Joore (2007) determined three main need areas: safety, social cohesion and health. Social cohesion is (among others) about keeping contact, and lack of social cohesion can lead to social isolation and loneliness. Modern information communication technologies might be able to prevent this, by allowing richer asynchronous communication (e.g. sharing videos of experiences) and better-mediated synchronous communication.

Through a mixed-method study Rob examined communication practices of elderly people and distilled promising future product directions.

Using experience PostCards and VoiceMail diary methods to gather information.

 

Supporting learning and Sports with Swinx (2008)

Martijn Jansen

The Swinxs games console supports children in playing active games, by offering explanations, guidance and encouragement. It comes with arm bands that communicate with the console using RFID tags, which allows Swinxs for example to keep scores and act as a referee. In this project, the student will design a new interactive add-on for the Swinxs console. For children playing with the object, it should provide meaningful and motivating feedback and support educational as well as sports-related goals.

Martijn designed a shared object to be used with the Swinx and examined the influence of using a personal object (such as a bracelet) or a shared object on the social interaction that occurred during play.

Intelligent Play Objects for Children (Master project, Industrial Design, 2008-2009)

Jos Verbeek

Eva Hopma

Intelligent play objects are play objects that use advanced technology such as sensors and actuators to react to the interaction with children and actively encourage the children to play. These objects contribute to the physical, social and cognitive development of children by providing them with opportunities for free play and stimulating them to play together and be physically active.

Many of the existing intelligent play objects only support so-called free play, i.e. no specific game rules are implemented. Offering one or two pre-defined games may, however, stimulate the children’s creativity in devising new games. Offering pre-defined games provides the object with the opportunity to provide stimulating and motivating feedback about the game objectives, which makes the game more fun. However, designing for open-ended play allows children to create their own game goals and rules.

The project investigates how to design intelligent play objects that allow open-ended play. It examines how to design motivating feedback that can be related to different game rules and goals and progress of a game. Working prototypes are built, and studies are conducted to examine the influence of variations in input behaviours and feedback on children’s behaviour in terms of the games that they create and the amount of social interaction.

IMG_5223 rollen dicht bij elkaar

Photo 1

A working prototype of an open-ended play object that provides feedback to children’s movements and that can transmit colours to another object of its kind.

Innovative Sport Games for Children – Glowe (2nd year Industrial Design project, 2007-2008)

Koen Verbruggen, Ruben Hekkens, Tommaso Petillo, Rens Brankaert (first group)

Nina Geurds, Nga-Hong Lau, Maaike Schillemans, Dave Senden (second group)

The aim of this project was to make basketball-like games more fun and motivating to play. The final concept allows children to practice diverse skills required for playing basket ball using gloves with infrared LED’s and receivers. One game consists of passing a virtual ball, by passing an infrared beam from one team member to the next. The other team’s members try to intercept the infrared beams with their gloves. The glove provides feedback about correct behaviour. The second group made a working prototype based on the concept created by the first group.

ScenarioVirtualBB

A scenario describing the use of the gloves by two teams.

Innovative Sport Games for Children – Scape (2nd year Industrial Design project, 2006-2007)

Jop Japenga, Dripta Roy, Ralph Kooijman, Stijn Weterings  &  Jeroen Verhoeven

The aim of this project was to make football-like games more fun and motivating to play

The concept is a ball in which technology is implemented to support and motivate children to play football. Because of the direct feedback this ball can provide, the children playing with it will become more self-aware of their abilities and receive a higher self-esteem from the games they play. It is a football equipped with an accelerometer in order to measure for example the power of a shot, the number of ball-touches in a dribble or the height of a shot. The feedback is provided in the form of changing colors displayed on the surface of the ball, so the ball can change color according to the quality or power with which the action was executed. The ball could e.g. turn green after ten successive volleys and red after fifty. This way, children will be motivated to train and get to the red and highest color.

The  football prototype, that provides feedback using coloured LED’s.

In order to keep the ball challenging for kids at different skill level, the ball will adjust its range to the level with which it is being played. This way your Feedball grows with you and becomes a very ‘good’ ball with which it is hard to reach the red color. Their Feedball will soon become the item to show off with to friends. Three games have been designed to be played with the ball. For example, for the Five Pass Game two teams consist out of two players who need to score in the same goal. Since there is no goal keeper the players are both offenders and defenders, and individual techniques are hereby emphasized. The ball itself measures the acceleration whenever it is kicked; this enables the ball to count the number of passes given. After the first pass the ball will start to light up a little bit, after five passes the ball is fully lit and both of the teams can use it to score a goal. The ball will stay lit for 10 seconds, but if none of the players scored within these 10 seconds then the ball will turn off, and five passes are needed to light it up again. The team which scored the most goals in the end will be the winner.

The design of the ball and the games was tested with children. This provided input about whether they understood how the games work and whether they them motivating. The results inspired a number of changes to the ball and the games. For example, the feedback should be more easily visible, and the amount of time that the ball will be fully lit to score a goal can be shorter than originally determined.

 

Props for Physical Play – Battlebots (2nd year Industrial Design Project, 2006-2007)

 

Werner Bastianen, Connie Golsteijn, Bart Neefs, Jeroen Witjes and Kerem Zaglul

 

Battle-bots is a new toy for boys and girls. It is a remotely controlled tank designed for 8 to 10 year olds (see figure 3). The tank is controlled by the child’s own body movements, creating a whole new experience of interaction. It appeals to activities, such as hunting, seeking, hiding, fighting, aiming, and shooting, that are very appealing to this age group. Most of these activities related to fighting are probably more appealing to boys, while other activities, required for the game such as controlling the tank and negotiating strategies are probably more appealing to girls. There are three different types of Battle-bots, each with their own relative advantages and disadvantages in terms of speed, firepower and maneuverability. Thus, different children can select a battle-bot most suitable to their aims.

 

The battle-bot is remotely controlled by physical movement of the child. Two sensors are needed to control the tank: one positioned in a vest on the chest and one in a glove on the hand. Moving the tank forward is done by bending over, slightly. Moving the tank backward is done by bending slightly backward. If you turn the Battle-bot will also turn. Aiming is done by moving your arm in a horizontal plane. This means, that when a child walks forward, the tank will also move forward and if the child turns in a different direction the tank will move in the same direction. To shoot a button is implemented in the glove.