Joggobot
Joggobot explores how robots might make exercises such as jogging more engaging in the future.Learn more →
Our research is focused on the merging of play and the active human body, drawing from research streams such as interaction design, human-computer interaction and 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.
Highlighted projects
Bubble Popper
Bubble Popper is an exertion game that combines the magic of popping bubbles in a merged physical-virtual space: players pop virtual bubbles appearing in the physical environment. Players can enjoy the tranquility of popping bubbles, similar to a bubble-wrap popping experience, or they can engage in competitive behaviour, trying to pop more bubbles than their play partner.
Waterfall Climber
Waterfall climber is an exertion game that combines elements of a platform game with traditional rock-climbing. Players have to climb an indoor climbing wall while simultaneously ducking out of the way of fallling virtual boulders. If a player is “hit” by a virtual boulder, his/her health decreases, and the water level, which starts off at the ground level, raises more quickly. The player’s challenge is therefore to watch out for the boulders while trying to stay above the water, all while climbing the wall! Communication with the belayer is facilitated because the belayer can warn of falling bolders.
Learn more →JUL
Categories: Welcome
Reading Group
This week’s Reading Group takes place on Thursday, 29 March 2012, at a new time-slot: 12.30-1.30. Rhys will be leading the discussion on the CHI paper “Practical, Appropriate, Empirically-Validated
MAR
Categories: News
Lunch Talk: 10 Tips on How (Not) to Write a Paper
On Wednesday (4-Apr-2012) Wouter from our lab will be giving a little talk about his learnings from writing a full paper with very little training in paper writing.
Feel free to bring your own sandwich, sushi roll or lunch salad. (Good) coffee + tea will be provided. Also feel free to bring in personal questions and challenges around paper writing that you’d like to discuss.
MAR
Categories: News
Harry talks about his experience at GDC (and SWSX)
Harry won a prestigious Spirit of Youth Australia award from Qantas to attend the Game Developer’s Conference in San Francisco, USA and South by South West Interactive in Austin, USA. He will talk about his experiences and what he learned for his game design work in the Exertion Games Lab on Wed, 28th Mar 2012, from 1pm-2pm. Everyone welcome, bring your lunch!
Learn more →
MAR
Categories: Talk
Chad interviewed
Chad gave a great interview today about the lab and his work on Exertion Games on public transport in response to Get Active month, you can read all about it here.
Learn more →MAR
Categories: News
Danielle received two awards today
Danielle from the Exertion Games Lab has been awarded a grant from the Copyright Agency Career Fund to attend CHI in Austin, Texas in May and her Doctoral Thesis, Swing That Thing : moving to move. The poetics of embodied engagement, has been awarded the Monash University Vice-Chancellor’s Mollie Holman Medal for best doctoral thesis. Congratulations!
Learn more →MAR
Categories: News
Publications at CHI
- Mueller, F., Vetere, F., Gibbs, M.R., Edge, D., Agamanolis, S., Sheridan, J.G., Heer, J. 2012. Balancing Exertion Experiences. CHI 2012. Long paper. 10 pages.
- Mueller, F., Toprak, C., Graether, E., Walmink, W., Bongers, B., van de Hoven, E. 2012. Hanging off a Bar. CHI 2012. Interactivity. 4 pages.
- Graether, E., Mueller, F. 2012. Joggobot: A Flying Companion as Flying Companion. CHI 2012. Interactivity. 4 pages.
- Mueller, F., Wilde, D., Toprak, C., Graether, E., Berthouze, N. 2012. Future User Research for Exertion Games. CHI 2012. Workshop User Research in Games. 4 pages.
- Tomlinso, B., Ross, J., André, P., Baumer, E.P.S., Patterson, D. J., Corneli, J., Mahaux, M., Nobarany, S., Lazzari, M., Penzenstadler, B., Torrance, A. W., Callele, D. J., Olson, G. M., Silberman, S., Ständer, M., Palamedi, F.R., Salah, A. A., Morrill, E., Franch, X., Mueller, F., Kaye, J., Black, R.W., Cohn, M.L., Shih, P.C., Brewer, J., Goyal, N., Näkki, P., Huang, Jeff., Baghaei, N., Saper, C. 2012. Massively Distributed Authorship of Academic Papers. CHI 2012. alt.chi. 10 pages.
- Wilde, D. 2012. hipdisk: Understanding the Value of Ungainly, Embodied, Performative, Fun. CHI 2012. alt.chi. 10 pages.
- Wilde, D. 2012. hipdisk: Experiencing the Value of Ungainly, Embodied, Performative, Fun. CHI 2012. Interactivity. 4 pages.
- Wilde, D., Cassinelli, A., Zerroug, Alexis. 2012. Light Arrays. CHI 2012. Interactivity. 4 pages.
MAR
Categories: News
ABC’s Catalyst TV crew shooting the Joggobot
Today the ABC’s Catalyst TV crew visited the Exertion Games Lab to shoot video footage of Joggobot, the flying robot that is a social companion for joggers.
“Catalyst is a program that sees science as a dynamic force changing our world.” They were very engaged, and spent the entire day in the lab, shooting footage of how we developed the idea of Joggobot, people’s perceptions of the Joggobot on a running track (see picture) and tested it themselves in our gym.
Unfortunately Eberhard, the main creator behind Joggobot could not have been there, but we highlighted him many times!
Learn more →
FEB
Categories: News
XGL Online Photo Album
The Exertion Games Lab now has an online photo album which we will be updating regularly. You can find photos from events, projects and fun times starting from day one.
XGL Photo Album
Learn more →FEB
Categories: News
Tags: photo
New poster for the lab
The Exertion Games Lab has a new poster! Thanks to Jonathan Marques and Tim Jeffs, who did a wonderful job. Josh, Chad and Harry already used it to display the many projects at the last conference they exhibited at.
Learn more →FEB
Categories: News
Tags: poster, RMIT
Bubble Popper at the Victorian Physical & Health Education Conference
Chad, Josh and Harry are exhibiting Bubble Popper at the Victorian Physical & Health Education Conference on 17 Feb 2012 at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, Australia.
Learn more →FEB
Categories: News
Tags: bubble popper, conference, education, health, RMIT