The Quest for the Perfect ExerGame

I gather that there is a large sporting event taking place in Beijing, China over the next couple of weeks…Back in June I was interviewed by a journalist for an “Olympics Special Issue” of the Institution of Engineering and Technology’s magazine. I was asked about the role “ExerGames” might play in sport and in particular how they might help athletes.

Having seen a video of the USA Olympic Bobsleigh team training on a simulation that was an inch perfect representation of the track (literally as it was based on the CAD design measurements), ExerGames are never going to compete with technical simulations. However I did suggest that they could be used for psychological training of athletes. It would allow them to experience a number of different scenarios in order to increase their resilience and develop coping strategies in response to provocative events e.g. controversial refereeing decision, hostile crowd, change of tactics.

The above point didn’t make it into the article, but rather there is an excellent overview (with more of a UK slant) of the field of ExerGames and where it is likely to be heading in the future. It is a good read and is available online here. Just in case you don’t quite make it to the end, here is my closing quote:

We could see worldwide competitions with grassroots participation because you don’t need multi-million pound facilities or lots of staff. A networked sporting competition would be accessible to anyone with a console and an Internet connection.

The theme of this post is about “transforming” the energy of physical movement. The picture below is from an award winning art installation/sculpture called ”Volume“ that was running at the same time as the Hide and Seek Festival a couple of weeks ago at Southbank, London. As people moved around the pillars of the installation, they responded with multi-colored light patterns and waves of ethereal sounds. Exactly how each pillar sensed movement and translated this into sound and light wasn’t clear, but it certainly made people curious. As people tended to move to a particular area, the sounds and lights became focused in that area. However, if everybody stood still for too long, then the effects began to die down. This would prompt people to move and explore a new area which would then dynamically spring into life.

Interestingly, I just heard a news item about the opening of Britain’s first so called “eco-night club”. In addition to having solar panels and a wind turbine, the high-tech dance floor generates electricity by the piezoelectric effect in response to movement. – I guess if nobody gets up to dance, then the music stops and the lights go out!

The electronic nature of “ExerGames” means that they require electricity for their operation. But, as in any activity, you have to look at the total energy balance of the activity. There is the potential for “ExerGames” to reduce travel related energy costs compared to conventional activities. But then there is energy cost of manufacture! Clearly it is a complex equation and deserves consideration.

Finally, before reaching any definite conclusion, the equation msut be balanced by the excess energy costs of future health care treatment arising due to the effects of a sedentary lifestyle. I guess this is something we will hear a lot more about in the future.

Could ExerGaming improve your short-term memory capacity? That is an interesting question posed by Paul Pivec in his poster presented at Ed-Media 2008 last week in Vienna. His preliminary results of testing DDR players with short-term memory tests found that expert DDR players tended to have a higher than average short-term memory capacity. Whilst this is only a statistical association and not cause and effect, it is plausible that playing DDR may have helped develop this enhanced capacity.

So how might playing DDR potentially enhance short-term memory? Consider that in order to play DDR at a high level you need to be able to rapidly process the visual arrow cues and translate these into a sequence of moves. The only way that you can achieve a high step rate is by anticipating the moves a number of steps in advance. That’s where the short term memory comes in. It follows that the greater a player’s short-term memory capacity, the higher number of steps they can anticipate in advance.

You might well ask why this work was being presented at an educational conference? Well, since there is some evidence that short-term memory capacity plays a role in learning, then there may be some scope to improve or even enhance the ability to learn by means of training using an “ExerGame” that relies heavily on short-term memory, as in the case of Dance Dance Revolution.

I am currently in a rather hot Vienna at the Educational Media 2008 conference. I have been getting some ideas on how to improve the efficiency of my teaching so that I will have more time for ExerGaming research!

At the same time I have been getting a good few ideas to try and apply to ExerGaming too. One really inspirational session yesterday was based on developing interactive story telling by a research group from a couple universities in Taiwan. Whilst they saw it as creating a richer educational experience, they action in the video clip they showed appeared to me as a series of linked mini ExerGames!

Obviously there are huge hardware and software platform issues, but it is an interesting start in a new area…

If you happened to be in the vicinity of the London Eye on Sunday last, then you may have seen a guy wandering around in a seemingly random manner wearing some earphones and holding a gadget out in front.

Let me fill you in. As part of a game, the grassy area to the south of the London Eye had been transformed into my garden and I had developed a serious problem with moles digging up and spoiling it. With the aid of GPS in the PDA that I was holding, my reality was augmented with “virtual” moles popping up around me at random intervals. In order to play the “Game” I had to dart about to various locations and “stamp” on these moles to stop them ruining my garden. It was good fun, although more of a brisk walk rather than a sprint, but the game could be developed much further.

I also took part in an “Eye Spy” game based on SMS texts. Everybody in the game wore a sticker with a number on it and once you spotted a fellow player or a location with a number you texted it in. It was great fun to meet so many different people along the south bank in London.

There were lots of other interesting games going on and I am currently in a virtual village moving around interacting by texting, but I am not really sure what is going on. I will let you know if I manage to work it out.

Is “Hide and Seek” the original “ExerGame”? Well maybe, but this weekend sees a few variations on this theme with more or less technology incorporated into them at the Hide & Seek Festival in London this weekend.

Since I will be passing through London this weekend on my way to Vienna, I could help but seek it out, if you excuse the pun! There are all sorts of weird and wonderful games described on the website, so who knows what to expect…

I have been asked a few comments from a journalist for a magazine feature about “Active Computer Games” and Sport in the run up to the Olympic Games in August. As well as updating them on my research, I gave a few thoughts as to where “ExerGames” are going in the future. But didn’t feel able to make any comment as to whether or not they might someday become an “Olympic Sport”…

What? Well, just in case you think I have totally flipped – check out the Digital Games ‘08. It is a global competition with regional heats and a final in Shanghai. You don’t need really expensive facilities and a whole support team. Anybody with a games console and an internet connection can take part. Now what if we could network up a few “ExerGames” and capture some of that excitement and energy…

Or do we risk institutionalizing “ExerGames”? Let me know your thoughts – “Let the Discussions commence…”

I took a welcome time out from examination activities yesterday and attended a workshop on business skills tailored specifically for life scientists. With all the exam work piling up around me, I began to wonder if I had signed up early last month in a moment of sleep deprived madness when the jetlag was at its worst.

On reflection it was perhaps rather an inspired move. The morning session yesterday was very stimulating in helping to clarify the difference between and feature and a benefit. Personally speaking, it would appear that day-to-day scientific practice tends to focus on features and the benefits come as a bit of an after thought when trying to justify what we do. Having learnt this lesson, I realize I need to re-orientate some of my thinking.

The workshop then moved on to business models. At first this was a bit of a challenge, but once you got into the idea of basically “sell anything and everything” then ideas started to flow. On that point, perhaps I should get some merchandizing going for my blog. T-shirt or baseball cap anybody?

The first part of the afternoon session was about business development funding sources and the latter half devoted to intellectual property in a “Who wants to be a millionaire?” style format. It was good to experience it on the receiving end before considering whether or not to try it in one of my own classes. At this point I should disclose that I had previously taken a British Computer Society module in Professional Issues, so I had a reasonable handle on most of the topics. However, I still can’t get my head round software patents in the US. That reminds me, I must try and get round to taking the BCS exams.

Overall it was a stimulating and thought provoking workshop and has given me the confidence go on and explore a few possibilities…

In my 3rd life (as a slot for second life is already occupied) I manage to squeeze in some educational technology research. I am currently preparing for a poster demo I will be giving at Ed-Media 2008 in Vienna in a couple of weeks.

When checking out the program, I came across this poster Movement Based Learning: An Analysis of Dance Dance Revolution in the same session! The work to be presented “examines the possibility that dance games such as Dance Dance Revolution or StepMania enhance the cognitive abilities that are critical to academic achievement“.

If you’re interested my research involves the use of 2D barcodes (quick response codes) and is titled In-Class Utility of a Mobile Phone to Deliver Context Specific Audio Information to Students including those with Visual Impairment.

So there you have it, my 1st and 3rd worlds will be colliding at the World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia and Telecommunications in Vienna in a couple of weeks. I’ll keep you posted.

Report from symposium entitled “Active Computer Games as a Tool to Promote Physical Activity Among Children” at the ISBNPA annual conference 2008. ISBNPA stands for the “International Society for Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity” (bit of a mouthful). Around 40 researchers in the field physical activity behavior attended the symposium. Dr Ingrid Bakker (chair) gave a brief introduction and then it was on to the first presentation.

Dr Alasdair Thin presented a review of a number of studies he has conducted into various different genres of “Active Video Games” and highlighted the features that tend to maximize the oxygen consumption and hence energy expenditure required to play them. He included a number of brief video clips to illustrate the games and these were well received by the audience, even provoking several periods of laughter (must be on to something here!).

Monique Simons followed on in a similar manner, with energy expenditure data from another set of active video games, again with a degree of variation in the physical exertion required to play them. In addition, she had studied periods of free play, where the children could choose which games to play. Feedback from the participants revealed that a the games that were most attractive incorporated a degree of challenge or competition that was neither too easy nor too difficult, but well matched to the player’s ability.

Dr Antonio Palmeira then described an intervention using “Active Video Games” in overweight adolescents. Conventional treatments had failed the patients and this was seen pretty much as a last resort. However, it was deliberately decided not to focus on weight loss, but rather behavioral change. The introduction of “Active Video Games” resulted in an increase in physical activity in parallel with a reduction in sedentary behavior. Whilst it is early days, this finding is a promising start.

Dr Bakker gave the last presentation on “Computer Technology in Outdoor Playgrounds”. She described a number of recent innovations and gave qualitative data on how they were received by the children. It was immediately apparent that different games appealed to different age groups and that there were distinct differences between primary school year groups. However, as the novelty of the games wore off over time, the games lost their popularity in favor of traditional activities.

A lively discussion followed the presentations and their were both positive and negative comments. Two key issues were how much of the participation effect is due to a “novelty factor” and would “Active Video Games” just “steal” physical activity time from more traditional play activities? To counter this, the early state of the field was acknowledged and the potential for “Active Video Games” to adapt to the player’s ability and move away from a “one size fits all”. Also there was recognition of the wider context of such games including networked games, leagues and other incentive schemes.

In closing, the symposium was attended by some established researchers in the physical activity behavior field and whilst there was a degree of healthy skepticism, a challenge was put down to prove them wrong. Therefore the quest continues…

L to R: Alasdair Thin, Ingrid Bakker, Antonio Palmeira & Monique Simons