aquaris

Aquaris is a game dedicated to impart knowledge about renewable energy technologies and energy-saving measures to children of the fourth grade. It was intended to be set up as an installation in a small museum, owned by an electricity producing company. Private guided tours about the topic mentioned before where offered for whole fourth grade classes at once and should be extended by some more fun part in the end, where the children can employ the new knowledge, motivating them to pay attention at the tour before.

Click to see the project presentation video (52mb) — also available in lower quality (17mb).

Download a keyboard controlled demo version (extract data from ZIP, run included aquaris.swf, Flash Player required).

my responsibilities and tasks

Professor Frog, the host

• leading software development
• developing server software (see below), partially Flash interface
• carry out research about optimal controller devices to play the game
• creating host character
• coordinating graphics – audio – code interoperability
• assist construction of controller devices

requirements

From the situation described in the introduction and the fact, that by default, a whole class of up to 30 children takes a tour at once and finally approaches the game, where the pupils should not spend more than one hour, three requirements were derived:

easy to learn game flow

• sounds and colors clearify boni and mali
• minimal complexity: collect water and boni for point, avoid mali

easy to use controller, which demand exercise

• form follows function: the cursor on the screen should follow the movement of the player
• no buttons should be necessary to simplify usage
• the player’s position should represent the cursor’s position on screen to alleviate the identification of the cursor controlled
• the main menu to start the game will be controlled by an additional mouse, which allows the guide to supervise and interfere

impart knowledge within 12 minutes

game mode screenshot

• The game was design to be fulfilled in a predefined time of maximal 12 minutes and can be played simultaneously by up to six players divided into three groups, i.e. five groups of six people fit into one hour of total time. But nevertheless after mindful listening throughout the whole tour, at least six of the 12 minutes should be fun only – called game mode.
• 

  quiz mode screenshot

  The idea behind the game is to motivate the pupils to pay attention to the tour guide, therefore knowledge pays off in the quiz part. All points collected in each part weight 50%, for this reason it is impossible to win by only playing well without knowledge from the tour and vice versa.

• To cope with minor reading problems of fourth grade pupils, text and instructions are mostly spoken.

considered controller designs

Conditions, material, costs and a resulting conclusion have been gathered for each idea.

pressure-sensitive mat

• ZTiles is a modular system of pressure sensitive tiles made of rubber; weight is measured and transmitted as analog signal; tiles can be clipped together and get connected to each other automatically
• could not be bought at that time as still under development

switching mat

• mat contains two layer, which get connected under pressure resulting only in a on/off digital signal;
• very imprecise tracking due to digital signal signal output, not wear-proof – therefore declined

camera tracking

• camera needs to be set up, floor preparations costly (needs dull finish), complex and error prone software necessary, players need to wear colored clothes to distinguish them, install curtains to create a constant light situation
• in conclusion, error prone player identification and the  systems is vulnerable to any kind of dirt
• costs are relatively low; approximately 400€ for the camera, 1000€ to prepare the floor, some clothing; 1500€ in total

handle with cable pull mechanism

• complex custom construction, potentiometer could measure position of handle by counting rotations of a guide roll; computer hardware needed to convert current flow into digital signals
• very precise tracking, players are forced to take exercise
• computer hardware about 200-500€, one controller per player about 500€; 3500€ in total

seesaw

• quite similar technical requirement to the previous device, instead of a rope with handle pulled by the player, he steps upon a seesaw and the angle is measured
• an experimental setup showed, that it is very difficult to reach a specific position and hold it
• the construction should be simpler and therefore cheaper, around 300€, resulting in 2300€

RF-ID chip tracking

• sensors need to be placed around the playing area, at least three or four, but six should be much more accurate; as the coverage of passive chips are too low (below one meter), semi-active ones, which automatically switch to standby, to save energy, which allows them to work for more than five year with one battery set, would be needed (six meters of range and more),
• each sensor is able to identify eighty steps of signal strength, by using at least three sensors, the position of each chip should be calculable; as the signal strength is highly dependent on environment changes (players occlude each other), an amount of six sensors to cover the whole field would be necessary;
• additionally the player needs to “wear” the chip somehow, maybe hidden in a cap or in shoes
• one sensor costs about 1200€, each chip about 30€; 7400€ in total.

decision

RF-ID tracking was very appealing, despite the fact that we would have needed to experiment a lot, though quite expensive. But as our sponsor left the project for internal reasons, we had to cut down on budget. Luckily we could win over a mechatronics student and go for another very promising idea, the handle with cable pull device, as we considered it to be the most convenient alternative. The handling is very close to the movement of the cursor on the screen and we regarded it to be the most quickly and easily learnable.

advantages at a glance

model of the controller device

• form follows function: the cursor on the screen follows one to one the controller handle
• no button functions need to be learned, all interactions necessary to play the game can be performed moving the handle
• each controller device is placed accordingly to its cursor on the screen
• very precise
• needs to be calibrated only once at setup time
• no influences of environment

See a 3D animation (4mb) about placement and function of the controllers or its low quality version (1mb).

realization

The new controller in a very early state on the right side.

First controller prototype with a width of approximately two meters

Controller connected to the internal A/D converter board.

See a video about setting up the controllers (20mb wmv) for the public project presentation – low quality (5mb wmv).

hardware

software

estimated total costs

Finally we calculated (in 2006) the costs to get all controller devices produced by a company plus additionally necessary equipment.

Though we could not effort the construction of a full set of six controllers, two prototypes have been built, to demonstrate the functionality.