Mueller, F., Altimira, D. and Khot, R.A. Reflections on the Design of Exertion Games. Games for Health Journal. Liebert, 4(1), p.3-7.
Straker, L.M., Fenner, A.A., Howie, E.K., Feltz, D.L., Gray, C.M., Lu, A.S., Mueller, F., Simons, M. and Barnett, L.M. Efficient and Effective Change Principles in Active Videogames. Games for Health Journal. Liebert, 4(1), p43-52.
There are several great publication successes to report. They occurred at the end of last year, so the announcement comes in a batch, but nevertheless congratulations to everyone involved! Mads presented at OzCHI in Newcastle, Australia, Jayden at CHI PLAY in Toronto, Canada (with Rich also having a co-authored paper there), Rich presented at ICEC and so did Will at IE (Interactive Entertainment) in Sydney, and David from HitlabNZ presented our collaborative paper at ACE (Advances in Computer Entertainment Technology) in Funchal, Madeira. Well done everyone!
Altimira, D., Mueller, F., Lee, G., Clarke, J., Billinghurst, M. Towards Understanding Balancing in Exertion Games. ACE 2014. Long paper. 8 pages.
Goddard, W., Byrne, R. and Mueller, F. Playful Game Jams: Guidelines for Designed Outcomes. Interactive Entertainment 2014. Long paper. 10 pages.
Byrne, R., Mueller, F. 2014. Designing Digital Climbing Experiences through Understanding Rock Climbing Motivation. Entertainment Computing – ICEC 2014, Springer. Long paper. 92-99.
Finnegan, D.J., Velloso, E., Mitchell, R., Mueller, F., Byrne, R. Reindeer & Wolves: Exploring Sensory Deprivation in Multiplayer Digital Bodily Play. CHI PLAY 2014. Work-in-Progress. 411-412.
Garner, J., Wood, G., Danilovic, S., Hammer, J., Mueller, F. intangle: Exploring Interpersonal Bodily Interactions through Sharing Controllers. CHI PLAY 2014. Work-in-Progress. 413-414.
Jensen, M.M. and Mueller, F. Running with technology: Where are we heading? OzCHI 2014. Long paper. 527-530
We have a new publication:
Rowe-Roberts, D., Cercos, R. and Mueller, F. Preliminary results from a study of the impact of digital activity trackers on health risk status. Studies in health technology and informatics. Investing in E-Health: People, Knowledge and Technology for a Healthy Future. 204. (2014), 143-148.
We are presenting a work-in-progress submission at UIST’14:
Mueller, F., Muirhead, M. Understanding the Design of a Jogging Companion. 2014. ACM Conference on User Interface Systems and Technology (UIST). Work-in-Progress. ACM, 81-82.
The Exertion Games Lab (exertiongameslab.org) at RMIT University (Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, rmit.edu.au) in Melbourne, Australia, is seeking exceptional PhD candidates to research the future of digital play.
The Exertion Games Lab is looking for candidates who value an
interdisciplinary design studio environment. You will be highly
motivated, willing to learn a variety of skills, extremely creative as
well as technical, and also have highly developed analytical and
communicative skills. Prior research experience (publications, etc.)
is desirable and so are hardware prototyping abilities (Arduino, etc.)
and programming skills. We are looking at potential for creativity,
excellence and drive.
We are interested in the following PhD topics:
* Digital Water Play: The candidate will prototype three digital water
play systems and examine users’ interactions to derive an
understanding of digital technology’s opportunities to facilitate
novel bodily water play interactions in surfing, SCUBA diving and
pools. An interest and experience with water activities, interactive
technology, hardware prototyping (including actuators) and aquatic
culture is required. This project will be undertaken with Dr. Florian
‘Floyd’ Mueller & Dr. Sarah Jane Pell (www.sarahjanepell.com)
* Flying robotic play companions: The candidate will prototype three
interactive sports systems with flying robotic companions and study
their use in order to understand what designers can learn from
designing interactive systems with quadcopters to support physical
exertion. These projects will utilize the lab’s Qualisys motion
capture system, the Xsens capture suit and crazyflie mini quadcopters.
A passion for robotics including hard- and software design for
quadcopters, motion capture and an understanding of sports-related
theory is required.
* Extreme sports: The candidate will prototype three interactive
extreme sports systems and study their use in order to understand what
designers can learn from extreme sports activities when it comes to
designing interactive systems. We envisage skydiving, wingsuit and
kiteboarding but will be also inspired by the candidate’s experience.
An interest and experience with extreme sports, hardware prototyping
and extreme sport culture is required.
* Sex toys: The candidate will contribute an understanding of the
potential of interactive technology to support bodily play, in
particular bodily sexual play, by designing and studying the use of
three novel prototypes to contribute towards our understanding of
bodily play. An interest and experience with bodily interaction design
and hardware prototyping is required.
Entry requirements:
You will need to have a three-year Bachelor and a Master’s degree.
Typical backgrounds are game design, interaction design,
human-computer interaction, computer science, industrial design,
electrical engineering, human movement, sports science, performing and
media arts but we are curious to hear what you can contribute. All
nationalities are encouraged to apply. The PhDs in the Exertion Games
Lab take 3 years. All applicants will need to apply for and be
accepted to the PhD program in Media and Communication at RMIT
University, see www.rmit.edu.au/
http://www.rmit.edu.au/browse;
March 2015. All positions are supervised by Florian ‘Floyd’ Mueller
(Digital Water Play together with Sarah Jane Pell) and will conclude
with a thesis. Scholarships are available according to the Australian
Postgraduate Award rate of approx. AUD 25,000 per year and the
Exertion Games Lab also provides a Macbook Air with 27” display. The
Exertion Games Lab also hosts weekly presentation, writing and reading
group activities to support the candidate. We are also offering space
to research and design in an open plan lab environment in the Design
Hub, Australia’s newest interdisciplinary design research centre at
RMIT University.
Expression of interest: 15 Oct 2014.
First, applicants will apply with an expression of interest by the
date above to the email below. After the internal interview with the
Exertion Games Lab, the candidate will need to apply to the general
RMIT University admissions office by 31 Oct 2014. This two-step
process ensures that we are able to endorse your application.
The Exertion Games Lab is a new lab that researches the future of
gaming and play in order to understand how to design better interactive
experiences. Our research is focused on the merging of play,
technology and the active human
body, drawing from research streams such as interaction design, human-
computer interaction and computer games research.
The culture in the Exertion Games Lab is one of interdisciplinary
work. At the Exertion Games Lab, we do not just philosophize and write
about the future, we actively invent it. We emphasize the development
of working prototypes in order to fully understand what play is, why
we play, and how we will play in the future. We do this because we
believe playing and gaming is a fundamental part of what makes us
humans who we are, and an understanding of this brings us closer to
our vision of a better world filled with interactive technologies that
support human values.
Please submit your application (CV, brief research outline
corresponding to position number (in the form of a paper incl.
references), transcript of latest academic results and portfolio URL)
by email to Florian ‘Floyd’ Mueller (exertiongameslab at
rmit.edu.au).
Looking forward to reading your applications!
Thanks,
The Exertion Games Lab
http://exertiongameslab.org/
* We should also mention that you will be doing your PhD right in the
heart of the world’s most livable city, Melbourne:
http://www.onlymelbourne.com.
RMIT University, School of Media & Communications (Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (rmit.edu.au), in Melbourne, Australia is seeking an exceptional PhD candidate to research Extreme Performance.
We are again on the RMIT landing page with our successes at CHI’14 and DIS’14, in the News section, well done everyone!
http://www.rmit.edu.au/browse;ID=gvx1yvlxc5a1
Rohit and his collaborators at LMU in Germany have together achieved an InfoViz full paper, congratulations!
Stusak, S., Tabard, A., Sauka, F., Khot, R., Butz, A. Activity Sculptures: Exploring the Impact of Physical Visualizations on Running Activity. InfoVis’14. Long paper. 10 pages.
Our new book chapter is out:
Mueller, F., Gibbs, M.R. and Vetere, F. 2014. Designing for Social and Physical Interaction in Exertion Games. Book chapter in: Nijholt, A. (ed.) Playful User Interfaces, Springer, 227-251.
Floyd, Rohit, Jayden, Amani and David will present their DIS paper in Vancouver in June. The research presents strategies on how sensing capabilities – and complementary wireless distance zones – could engage players with proxemics: the interpersonal distance between players. The work offers ubicomp and game designers novel resources for digital play.
Mueller, F., Stellmach, S., Greenberg, S., Dippon, A., Boll, S., Garner, J., Khot, R., Naseem, A., Altimira, D. 2014. Proxemics Play: Understanding Proxemics for Designing Digital Play Experiences. DIS 2014. Long paper. 10 pages.
Florian ‘Floyd’ Mueller is giving a talk on 3rd June 2014 at IBM Research Australia on “Designing Exertion”, 4pm.
The Exertion Games Lab had great success at CHI 2014, the premier conference in human-computer interaction: 10 Exertion Games Lab’ers presented in total 21 accepted submissions, including 4 full papers. CHI is the premier conference in human-computer interaction and attracted well over 3000 participants. The members of the Exertion Games Lab represented Australia’s largest group at the conference by far and had significant impact across all major venues, in particular highlights are: Rohit who presented his PhD research to a massive audience in the paper track but also in interactivity with Jeewon (and became a finalist in the videoshowcase), Jayden who presented his Honours work and became a finalist in the Student Game Competition, Betty who got keynote speaker Margaret Atwood to try out at Interactivity (and tweet about) her research on children’s book apps, Robert and Will who demonstrated with our support-crew Eric and Taylor CHI’s first BMX stunt-show showcasing Wouter’s LumaHelm (Wouter unfortunately could not attend, so thanks Robert and Will for helping Wouter out), Robert organized a workshop and Rich, Chad and Josh contributed to the GameJam4Research and presented their research in HCI and Sports. Well done everyone!
All papers can be seen here.
Together with Katherine Isbister, we created 10 Movement-based Game Guidelines, the first of their kind and validated by experts from indie, commercial and academic game design fields, to aid designers in creating engaging games involving bodily action. They will be presented to the public for the first time at CHI 2014.
We are very excited to have 21 submissions accepted at CHI 2014, the premier conference in human-computer interaction, to be held at Toronto, Canada.
We have 4 full papers, 4 interactivities, 2 workshop organizations, 1 student game competition, 1 special interest group organization, 1 panel, 1 videoshowcase and 7 workshop submissions. Congratulations to everyone who did such a great job in getting the word out about the great work done in the Exertion Games Lab!
Garner, J., Wood, G., Pijnappel, S., Murer, M., Mueller, F. 2014. i-dentity: Innominate Movement Representation as Engaging Game Element. CHI 2014. Long paper. 10 pages. 30 sec preview video. Video.
Khot, R., Hjort, L., Mueller, F. 2014. Understanding Physical Activity through 3D Printed Material Artifacts. CHI 2014. Long paper. 10 pages. 30 sec preview video. Video.
Mueller, F., Gibbs, M.R., Vetere, F., Edge, D. 2014. Supporting the Creative Game Design Process with Exertion Cards. CHI 2014. Long paper. 10 pages. 30 sec preview video.
Mueller, F., Isbister, K. 2014. Movement-Based Game Guidelines. CHI 2014. Long paper. 10 pages. 30 sec preview video.
Walmink, W., Chatham, A., Mueller, F. 2014. Interaction Opportunities Around Helmet Design. CHI 2014. Interactivity. 4 pages. 30 sec preview video. Video.
Garner, J., Wood, G., Pijnappel, S., Murer, M., Mueller, F. 2014. i-dentity: Innominate Representation as Engaging Movement Game Element. CHI 2014. Interactivity. 4 pages. Video.
Khot, R., Lee, J., Munz, H., Aggarwal, D., Mueller, F. 2014. TastyBeats: Making Mocktails with Heart Beats. CHI 2014. Interactivity. 4 pages. 30 sec preview video. Video.
Sargeant, B., Mueller, F. 2014. How Far is UP? Encouraging Social Interaction Through Children’s Book App Design. CHI 2014. Interactivity. 4 pages.
Garner, J., Wood, G. 2014. i-dentity: Concealing Movement Representation Associations in Games. CHI 2014. Student Game Competition. 4 pages. FINALIST.
Mueller, F., Marshall, J., Khot, R., Nylander, S., Tholander, J. 2014. Jogging with Technology: Interaction Design Supporting Sport Activities. Special Interest Group (organizing). 4 pages.
Mentis, H., Höök, K., Mueller, F., Isbister, K., Khut, G.P., Robertson, T. 2014. Designing for the Experiential Body. CHI 2014. Panel. 5 pages. Video.
Khot, R., Lee, J., Hjorth, L., Mueller, F. 2014. SweatAtoms: Understanding Physical Activity through Material Artifacts. CHI 2014. Videoshowcase. 1 page. Video.
Nylander, S., Tholander, J., Mueller, F., Marshall, J. 2014. HCI and Sports. CHI 2014. Workshop (organizing). 4 pages.
Deen, M., Cercos, R., Chatham, A., Naseem, A., Fowler, A., Bernhaupt, R., Schouten, B., Mueller, F. 2014. CHI 2014 Game Jam [4Research]: Game Jams as a Research Tool. CHI 2014. Workshop (organizing). 4 pages.
Byrne, R. 2014. Game Jam 4 Research. CHI 2014. Workshop submission for Game Jam [4Research] workshop. 4 pages.
Garner, J. 2014. Design for Digital, Physical, Social Play. CHI 2014. Workshop submission for Game Jam [4Research] workshop. 4 pages.
Goddard, W. 2014. Issues and Opportunities Facing Game Jams for Design Research. CHI 2014. Workshop submission for Game Jam [4Research] workshop. 4 pages.
Segura, E. 2014. Jamming and researching the Play BOOST framework. CHI 2014. Workshop submission for Game Jam [4Research] workshop. 4 pages.
Toprak, C. 2014. Game Jams: A Method for Starting, Working On and Completing Games. CHI 2014. Workshop submission for Game Jam [4Research] workshop. 4 pages.
Andres, J. 2014. The Lights Track. CHI 2014. Workshop submission for HCI and Sports workshop. 4 pages.
Khot, R., Hjorth, L., Aggarwal, D., Mueller, F. 2014. Supporting Autonomy in Physical Activity through Material Artifacts. CHI 2014. Workshop submission for Positive Computing workshop. 4 pages.
Eelke and Ruth gave a talk each at the Disability Sport & Recreation Festival at Federation Square, Melbourne. The festival promotes healthy, active lifestyles through accessible and inclusive sport and recreation and is Victoria’s premier event for the disability sport and recreation sector, taking place annually in Melbourne
.
You are invited to attend this talk hosted by the Exertion Games Lab entitled “SweatSonics” by Stephen Barrass. Stephen will be visiting us in the lab from 17 – 24 March.
David’s work on balancing table tennis players with different skill levels was mentioned on the Yahoo News, New Zealand. David is at HitLab NZ and was a visiting researcher at the Exertion Games Lab and will present his work at 