Interaction Engineering Student Projects
Arnold the Caterpillar
Marcus Schulmann Saskia Wiedenroth Jason Gamero
The aim of the project is to create an interactive game, in which a game character, called Arnold the Caterpillar, has to gather objects and then move to a destination. As display a vertical plane (here: a back projection canvas) is used and the game environment can be created by putting and stacking boxes and other objects in front of it. By doing so Arnold is able to move to higher situated objects and the target area. A Kinect sensor will be used to assimilate the objects into the game and alter the game world. The goal of this project is to provide an amusing way of training logical skills as well as fine motor skills. This is especially useful since more and more children have a deficit in both logical and motor skills, due to increased activity in front of digital devices, such as TVs, PCs, consoles and smart phones. The advantage of using physical objects in this manner, is a more balanced way of interacting with the game, i.e. using your whole body by moving physical objects and not just moving your fingers or hands, which also helps to stay more focused.
Keywords
Tangible interaction Gaming