This is the Gameplay we did

Our challenge for this project was to create a game that motivates people to exercise. We used the Microsoft Kinect as our mode of interface with the game. The kinect tracks your movement with an infra-red camera and skeleton tracking software, and that data can be transferred into a program, for this project we used the program Processing 3.

In honor of the upcoming Star Wars movie, we wanted to create a Star Wars game. Our base idea was to have a game where the player can swing around a lightsaber, and on screen, they can deflect projectiles being shot at them. The main 3 screens are the “start” screen, where the game interface is laid out, the “play” screen, where the actual gameplay occurs, and the “death” screen, which would is shown when the game is lost.

The main problem we were attempting to solve by creating this project, was the issue of having children playing video games without exercising. 18 percent of children 6 through 11 living in the United States are classified as obese. The rate has steadily increased since the 1980’s. We believe this could be caused by the advancements in technological advancements in entertainment. Instead of going outside and playing a sport, children are more inclined to stay inside and play a video game or watch television.

To cope with this issue, we decided to create a video game that would include physical exercise. Through coding via processing, we were able to create the actual video game. We created a game that is built around the idea of guitar hero or piano tiles. We decided to build a game that would include jumping, because it is a simple action that still requires great physical exertion.

For the physical element of the project we built four load cell scales, and placed them together on a pair of two by fours. Each load cell was exactly 12 by 12 which was designed to support human weight. This made for a rectangular 4 foot by 12 inch structure that was four inches off of the ground. Through processing and an arduino uno, we were able to correlate the flow of tiles with the load cell board. We mounted the arduino on the bottom of the hollow load cell board. The wiring was also completed on the underside of the load cell board, making the wiring invisible to the eye.

The design of our video game was build around a 4 by four grid. The flow of tiles would reach an end zone on the bottom row of tiles. The user of the game would have to step on the corresponding tile on the load cell board to keep the game going. If the user stepped on the wrong tile or did not step in time, the game would end. The game provided three different speed levels for more advanced players. Since this project incorporated a great amount of coding, we did not need to make many iterations for the coding aspect. We did have two iterations of our load cell creation. Our first only included on piece of thick wood on the top layer, which did not support human weight. We then added a layer of thick wood to the surface and the load cell became much stronger. In the end, our project did achieve our goal of making a physical video game. It provided a workout that was physically taxing, yet also fun.

We faced several challenges during the course of completing this project. At first, we struggled heavily with learning the code, and figuring out how to create the layout in processing. In the coding process we ran into several bugs, and areas of code that would prevent us from further advancements. These bugs would sometimes take us days to fix and modify. In terms of our foot board, we did run into several problems. At first we had our piece set up each individual load cell making a total of four. When we made the decision to connect the four load cells to the two, two by fours, we ended up covering up some crucial screw holes for the electronics. To fix this we had to do some drilling to make new screw holes for the wires. Although this technique was not our top choice, it ended up serving its purpose and working well. Our final biggest problem revolved around causing the game to end when a tile passed the active zone. This was a very complicated issue because our code was extremely long and did not possess many functions. This meant that if were were going to fix this issue, it would mean redoing that majority of our code.

Our first iteration was the creation of the first generation load cells. These load cells did not hold enough weight with just one piece of thick wood. They needed to be strengthened through the use of more thick wood. To cope with this we added another piece of thick wood to the top and bottom doubling the strength. We had to modify the original boards to have longer screws to fit the two new boards. We made the two outside boards have larger holes, so the nuts would fit snuggly in the center of the board. This created an aesthetic and functioning load cell board. We then planned to use the load cells as created, without physical connection and setup next to each other.

In our next iteration, we decided to put the four load cell boards onto two pieces of two by fours. The load cells were only screwed in the sides so interference with the electronics would not be problem. The two by fours placed for maximum height having the two inch side being the base. This modification gave us two new added benefits. The first being the added height to load cell board. Since our project was designed around the concept of providing a workout, the added height would mean more strenuous exercise. The user would have to jump six inches up to the top of the board instead of only two. The second added benefit would be stabilization and organization of the load cells. They now have an exact placement and will be stable with weight placement.

Staying fit and moving around in today's busy world is a hard thing to do. We created a fun game, which using load cells, forces the user to jump to the correctly lit lily pad. Our game keeps you active and moving while you jump from pad to pad.  

At the the core our game is powered by three things: an arduino, load cells, and processing code. Each of the four lily pad has four load cells and one LED strip. The wiring then flows to one lily pad which holds the arduino. The arduino then has a code that sends the data from the loads cells and LEDs to our computer running the processing code. Our code then outputs a screen on the computer with the game's interface. Our idea was faced with many problems along the way. One main problem we had was getting out leds to work. After hours of troubleshooting we realized that there was an issue with the communication from the processing code to the arduino code, which was powering the lights. We had to adjust our code so that the two could communicate.

For our first iteration, we designed and built the lilypads out of cardboard. Building in cardboard helped us significantly because we were able to test out our locking mechanism to see if there were any flaws in the design without having to waste perfectly good wood. We laser cut several different lilypad designs to see which lilypad looked more realistic and was a suitable size for jumping. We also designed and built a “hashtag” system that supported the lilypads so that all the lilypads could be at different heights to add another competitive component to our game. The way the hashtags worked was by having four pieces of cardboard lock into each other to create a more secure and sturdy support system to provide more stability when jumping from lilypad to lilypad. After working in cardboard, we went straight to our final product in wood.

Paddle Bump is a game played by two players who "bump" a ball across the screen. The game has similar features to those found in Pong. Each player has an up and down button, to control the movements of a paddle to respond to the ball shots of his/her opponent, and to bounce the ball back. A player scores when he/she manages to overpass the defense of his opponent and to hit the ball on his opponent’s wall. We used graphic material prepared in Photoshop, for the visual part of the game, and Processing to code the game.

The Pottery Simulator was created so people could make pottery in a physical and exciting manner. The main reason why the game was created was to have fun and create pottery with technology. The Pottery Simulator has many complex layers of technology that complement each other. The basis of all of the technology comes from a computer which runs code in Processing that creates a pot and wheel that you can move. The computer is also connected to a TV screen which is laying flat facing upwards. Laying on top of the TV screen is a homemade hologram projector that is constructed out of four clear plastic trapezoids. The trapezoids are all connected making an upside down pyramid. Looking from one of the sides of the pyramid, there is a reflection from the TV screen on the hologram which makes it look like the pottery is floating. Additionally, a Wii remote is on a tripod facing the TV screen and hologram from behind. This Wii remote is synced to the computer through bluetooth. In addition to the Wii remote, an infrared pen is calibrated to the hologram which, when the button is pushed down, can change the shape of the pottery.

Although the infrared pen and Wii remote are in the final iteration of the Pottery Simulator, the Christie Interactivity Kit and a tablet were intended to be used in the original idea. As the tablet screen was not interactive enough, it was quickly ruled out. After the Christie Interactivity Kit fell and broke, the infrared pen and Wii remote became the main opotion for interacting wit the hologram. As shown, the way of interacting with the game was a challenge. Additionally, the code in order to make the pottery change shape was difficult to create. Particularly the movement of the pot on the y-axis of the hologram was challenging to figure out. Lastly, trying to figure out a way to keep the pottery actually on the wheel was a challenge. With all of these problems and solutions, there was always something else to work on or fix. The Pottery Simulator can never be finished as there is endless ways improve this project, but it does demonstrate the idea that we were working towards.

The first iteration of the Pottery Simulator was played by touching the screen of a tablet. The game console was made up of a thirty-two inch television, a tablet, and a plastic pyramid. The Plastic pyramid was placed upside-down onto the TV to create the illusion of a hologram, and the tablet ran the Processing sketch. The idea for the game at this point was to have a start screen, and then once on the play screen there would be spinning image of a pot created in Photoshop that could be stretched or erased as the player dragged their fingers across the tablet’s screen. After finding that touching a normal touch screen was not very fun, we chose to move on to looking at other highly accurate ways to interact with the game.

The second iteration of the game used a multi-touch frame instead of a tablet in order for the player to interact with the game. This version of of the game also changed the way that the clay was warped when the player tried to change the shape of the pot. Instead of using Photoshopped images, we decided on creating 3D models of the basic pot and pottery wheel, and then creating an animation in Processing that caused the objects to appear as if they were spinning. A grid was then created over the animation of the pot that could then be warped as the player swiped their fingers across the touch frame’s active area, causing the images of the pot to change shape. While this version of the game worked fine at times, the pot was able to hover over the pottery wheel, and the multi-touch frame would not work all the time. Since the touch frame was so unreliable and the pot did not seem realistic, we chose to change the way the clay was formed and found another new way to interact with the game.

The third and final iteration of Pottery Simulator has a Wii remote, and an infrared pen that the player uses to interact with the hologram. The code in the game has been changed in order to stop the clay from lifting off of the pottery wheel as the player shapes it into a pot. The upside-down plastic pyramid from the other iterations has stayed in this one, producing the illusion that the pot the player is creating is actually inside the pyramid. The Wii remote is placed far behind the rest of the game console, allowing it to sense the infrared pen from anywhere in front of the hologram. As of now the pot changes shape in weird ways. Instead of the clay having a smooth texture, spikes form on the edges of the pot as the player shapes it to look how they want it to. The Wii remote and infrared pen are also not working as well as we would like them to. It is very hard to control the shape of the pottery using the pen as the Wii remote has to be so far away from the television that it has trouble detecting exactly where the pen is, causing the mouse pointer on the computer to move around by itself.

The Pottery Simulator was created so people could make pottery in a physical and exciting manner. The main reason why the game was created was to have fun and create pottery with technology. The Pottery Simulator has many complex layers of technology that complement each other. The basis of all of the technology comes from a computer which runs code in Processing that creates a pot and wheel that you can move. The computer is also connected to a TV screen which is laying flat facing upwards. Laying on top of the TV screen is a homemade hologram projector that is constructed out of four clear plastic trapezoids. The trapezoids are all connected making an upside down pyramid. Looking from one of the sides of the pyramid, there is a reflection from the TV screen on the hologram which makes it look like the pottery is floating. Additionally, a Wii remote is on a tripod facing the TV screen and hologram from behind. This Wii remote is synced to the computer through bluetooth. In addition to the Wii remote, an infrared pen is calibrated to the hologram which, when the button is pushed down, can change the shape of the pottery.

Although the infrared pen and Wii remote are in the final iteration of the Pottery Simulator, the Christie Interactivity Kit and a tablet were intended to be used in the original idea. As the tablet screen was not interactive enough, it was quickly ruled out. After the Christie Interactivity Kit fell and broke, the infrared pen and Wii remote became the main opotion for interacting wit the hologram. As shown, the way of interacting with the game was a challenge. Additionally, the code in order to make the pottery change shape was difficult to create. Particularly the movement of the pot on the y-axis of the hologram was challenging to figure out. Lastly, trying to figure out a way to keep the pottery actually on the wheel was a challenge. With all of these problems and solutions, there was always something else to work on or fix. The Pottery Simulator can never be finished as there is endless ways improve this project, but it does demonstrate the idea that we were working towards.

Paddle Bump is a game played by two players who "bump" a ball across the screen. The game has similar features to those found in Pong. Each player has an up and down button, to control the movements of a paddle to respond to the ball shots of his/her opponent, and to bounce the ball back. A player scores when he/she manages to overpass the defense of his opponent and to hit the ball on his opponent’s wall.Paddle Bump is a game played by two players who "bump" a ball across the screen. The game has similar features to those found in Pong. Each player has an up and down button, to control the movements of a paddle to respond to the ball shots of his/her opponent, and to bounce the ball back. A player scores when he/she manages to overpass the defense of his opponent and to hit the ball on his opponent’s wall.