CHI 2013, the premier conference in human-computer interaction, with the featured community “Games” this year, is coming up, and we are going with a large group to make a splash and have impact: 10 members of the Exertion Games Lab will be presenting 16 submissions!
We are running a Game Jam as well as a Special Interest Group on Sports and HCI, demonstrate 5 of our games and also have a best paper nomination. Everyone is on the plane to Paris now or already there! We are also having a networking party on Tuesday night with RWTH Aachen to celebrate our success, if you are around, find us at Interactivity and we give you the details!
We are organizing a Special Interest Group at CHI in Paris: “HCI and Sports”. In keeping with this fun theme, we will be jogging around the conference venue while we discuss interactive technology and sport. We invite you to bring your running gear with you (and any tech like Nike+, Runkeeper, your own prototype, …) and we meet on
Tuesday, 30 Apr, 16:00 in front of room 361.
We’ll be running for approx. 30min and all jogging levels will be catered for!
Abstract:
Recent advances in cheap sensor technology has made technology support for sports and physical exercise increasingly commonplace, which is evident from the growing popularity of heart rate monitors and GPS sports watches. This rise of technology to support sports activities raises many interaction issues, such as how to interact with these devices while moving and physically exerting. This special interest group brings together industry practitioners and researchers who are interested in designing and understanding human-computer interaction where the human is being physically active, engaging in exertion activities. Fitting with the theme, this special interest group will be “run” while running: participants will be invited to a jog together during which we will discuss technology interaction that is specific to being physically active whilst being physically active ourselves.
15 submissions from the Exertion Games Lab have been accepted for CHI 2013 to be held in Paris, France. David’s work from HitLab NZ that he did in collaboration with us also got accepted, so that makes it 16 submissions overall. This means we go over there with a big group, showing many of our games, and planning on having a big impact on the international research community about the work we are doing in the lab! Congrats to everyone!
Chad’s submission to the Doctoral Consortium has (in addition to his full paper) also been accepted to FDG 2013 (Foundations of Digital Games) in Chania, Crete, Greece.
Chad’s full paper on Designing Digital Games for Trams has been accepted to FDG 2013 (Foundations of Digital Games) in Chania, Crete, Greece. Congratulations!
Our paper on technology for skateboarding received a Honourable Mention for Best Paper at the ACM SIGCHI conference in Paris, France, placing it in the top 5% of all papers!
Florian ‘Floyd’ Mueller will be on the ABC Radio News show tonight, talking not about games for a change, but about how to design for users’ desires within the context of human-computer interaction in response to the latest debate on the CFA FireReady mobile app.
Rohit’s PhD research has been accepted (acceptance rate 37%) to be presented at the Student Research Competition at CHI 2013 in Paris, France. He receives a travel grant and the chance to present his research on using 3D printers to make physical activity more engaging through personalised souvenirs. Being a finalist means he gets the chance to win prize money as well as entry into the ACM competition. Congrats Rohit!
Chatham, A., Mueller, F., Bernhaupt, R., Khot, R., Pijnappel, S., Toprak, C., Deen, M., Schouten, B. Game Jam. CHI 2013. Workshop (organizing). 3 pages.
Mueller, F., Chatham, A., Toprak, C., Khot, R., Pijnappel, S., Marshall, J. HCI with Sports. CHI 2013. Special Interest Group (organizing). 4 pages. 30 sec preview video.
LumaHelm has been featured in the press again, this time in The Quintessence‘s special issue on LED technology: click on the image to read the article.
Sebastiaan’s Copy, Paste, Skate project that examines interactive technology for skateboarders is on the front page of the IT section of The Australian newspaper, with a very nice picture of Sebastiaan doing a trick using his system that offers visual, auditory and haptic feedback.
“Playmakers” a film about Pervasive Games by Ivo Gormley (UK), who is visiting us and will be available for questions:
‘Playmakers’ – free film screening at RMIT Design Hub, Bldg. 100, Cnr. Victoria and Swanston Sts, RMIT, 4th Floor
4.30pm
This is a free public screening of this 30min documentary about new forms of play in public space.About the film:
Playmakers is a groundbreaking documentary the about the emerging phenomenon of Pervasive games. Over the last 50 years play has become an increasingly private activity. Now it is bursting back onto our streets.
The film features those at the forefront of the pervasive games movement, it includes games designers such as Blast Theory’s Matt Adams, Atari’s Paulina Bozek and Claire Reddington from the Pervasive Media Studio alongside technology heavyweights such as Howard Rheingold and anthropologist Mike Wesch.
Existing on the boundaries of art, games design, theatre and technology pervasive games take many forms – creep through the streets at night tracking down your enemies, hide stashes of treasure, report on the shoddy practices of rival news teams or collapse with laughter with a surrealist version of trivial pursuit. The film explores the implications of reclaiming play into the public domain and shows the possibilities offered by new technologies.
Chad put together a great Game Arcade at Games for Change Australia-New Zealand at RMIT’s Design Hub, come check it out if you are around in Melbourne today and tomorrow!
Channel 10 were in the Exertion Games Lab again, having just visited last week and filming our interactive skateboarding rig, this time they shot the LumaHelm, our illuminated helmet. The results were great shots around the Design Hub, including Chad riding his bike safely as he used the LumaHelm to indicate. The picture shows Sebastiaan explaining the technology.
Wouter’s LumaHelm receives Bronze at the prestigious Spark Design Awards! The Spark Design Awards is the “world’s first multi-level design competition” with a “mission to promote better living through better design”, sponsored by Autodesk and others.
Today, Channel 10 was visiting again, this time to shoot our latest project, Sebastiaan’s interactive skateboarding obstacle system called “Copy, Paste, Skate“. It offers visual, audio, and haptic feedback to extend and re-live the skateboarding experience of succeeding at a trick. This research helps us understand how interactive technology can support a sense of achievement, called Fiero in games.