Gym Theater

As part of an ongoing effort to re-imagine the gym, we wanted (and succeeded) to create an interactive game that is a fun exercise.

Our project is an ongoing process of learning to code, using a kinects motion capture system, and a lot of design work.

As the Gym Theater Game team, we started out project by defining our objectives as clearly as possible. Our objectives were:

Understanding the components of single player and multi player games

Analyzing several different exercises and choose the ones that fits the best into our project

Integrating mechanics, and programming with ideas and concepts to come up with an original design

Consider the transportability and safety aspects of the final design

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fD3JxuukUOQ&feature=youtu.be

Principles of Design 2013

Our finished product is a game based around a punching bag. In this game, the user is fighting an opponent, and is trying to knock him out by lowering his health down to zero.

The punching bag is wrapped in a layer of pizeoresistive film. This special layer changes resistance when is changes shape. So, every time it is punched, an arduino detects the resistance change.

Another important compenent of our system is the display. The dislay is the “Health Bar” of the opponent. This lets the user know how he/she is doing.

The Arduino holds everything together. It reads the resistance of the pizeoresistive film and compares it with the resistance of another resistor. If the resitane of the film is higher, it has been punched. If it is lower, there is no punch. With every punch, the arduino deducts health from the opponent and displays this on the “Health Bar”.

- It is a great exercise!

Boxing is listed as one of the best cardio exercises. It's one the rare exercises that works out the whole body, and with “Strike”, there is no space to be lazy and take a break since the health bar keeps recovering until you declare yourself the champion.

- It is safe and accessible!

Our design is significantly cheaper and more accessible than a gym. We also dare to say that it is much more challenging as well. Although boxing is one the best exercise, an inexperienced person is very likely to get hurt if he/she is fighting against a real opponent. On the other hand, our design provides different levels of hardness that is determined by the programme, if the force of a punch is above a certain threshold, the game automatically goes on to the next level that takes more effort and time to finish. This way, the possibility of injury is minimized.

- It is a very flexible design!

While we chose to use a punching bag for our project, our design can have multiple uses such as a great starter kit for an inexperienced person or a great training equipment for professional athletes. For example, we think it'd be great to transform our design into a kick board, an equipment used by Taekwondo players on a regular basis. This kind of a design would allow the athletes to calibrate the force of their kicks, and have more control over their bodies.

eid_gantt_chart.pdf

house_of_quality.ppt

The Desk

gym_theatre_game.pdf

Matt Palmer

Jason Schmidt

Jared Hecht

Alara Dirik