Exerlearn Bike: an Exergaming System for Children's Educational and Physical Well-Being by Rajwa Alharthi a Thesis Submitted T
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EXERLEARN BIKE: AN EXERGAMING SYSTEM FOR CHILDREN’S EDUCATIONAL AND PHYSICAL WELL-BEING BY RAJWA ALHARTHI A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE AND POSTDOCTORAL STUDIES IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER IN COMPUTER SCIENCE OTTAWA-CARLETON INSTITUTE FOR COMPUTER SCIENCE SCHOOL OF ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING AND COMPUTER SCIENCE UNIVERSITY OF OTTAWA © RAJWA ALHARTHI, OTTAWA, CANADA 2012 Abstract Inactivity and sedentary behavioural patterns among children contribute greatly to a wide range of diseases including obesity, cancer, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes. It is also associated with other important health effects like mental health issues, anxiety, and depression. In order to reduce these trends, we need to focus on the highest contributing factor, which is lack of physical activity in children’s daily lives. 'Exergames' are believed to be a very good solution in promoting physical activity in children. Such games encourage children to engage in physical activity for long periods of time while enjoying their gaming experience. The purpose of this thesis is to provide means of directing child behaviour in a healthy direction by using gaming enhancements that encourage physical exertion. We believe that the combination of both exercising and learning modalities in an attractive gaming environment could be more beneficial for the child's well-being. In order to achieve this, we present an adaptive exergaming system, the "ExerLearn Bike", which combines physical, gaming, and educational features. The main idea of the system is to have children learn about new objects, new language, practice their math skills, and improve their cognitive ability through enticing games and effective exercise. Three games have been incorporated to provide children with various educational benefits. The system has personalized features that allow guardians to customize the learning content, skill level, and required physical activity to meet their child’s needs. A stationary bike is used as a gaming controller to encourage children to undertake daily aerobic exercise. A modular design approach was adopted so that it is possible to use any stationary bicycle as an input interface by simply attaching a number of devices to it. This thesis provides detailed information about the design requirements, the design model, the proposed system and its related hardware components, the design and II development of the gaming software, and the qualitative and quantitative evaluation of the system’s performance. III Acknowledgements This thesis would not have been possible without God. First and foremost, I would like to thank Him for giving me the health, strength, and patience to persevere during my studies. Also, it is a pleasure to thank those who have made this thesis possible. First, Special thanks goes to my beloved parents for their faith in me, their inspiration, and for understanding and supporting me throughout my graduate studies. They have sacrificed so many things over the past years to allow me to be as ambitious as I wanted. They are always my source of strength and the reason I have made it so far in life. I would like to convey my sincere gratitude to my supervisor Prof. Abdulmotaleb El Saddik for his help, advice, and guidance from the earliest stages of this research. I owe my deepest gratitude to Ali Karime for his valuable assistance, comments, and support during the progress of this work. Finally, I would also like to express my sincere gratitude to all of the Multimedia and Communications Research Laboratory (MCRLAB) colleagues for the good times we spent together. IV Table of Contents ABSTRACT .......................................................................................................................................... II ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ................................................................................................................ IV TABLE OF CONTENTS ...................................................................................................................... V LIST OF TABLES ........................................................................................................................... VIII LIST OF FIGURES .............................................................................................................................. X CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................ 1 1.1 BACKGROUND AND MOTIVATION ................................................................................................. 1 1.2 RESEARCH PROBLEMS ................................................................................................................... 4 1.3 RESEARCH OBJECTIVE AND CONTRIBUTIONS ............................................................................... 5 1.4 AUTHOR’S PUBLICATIONS ............................................................................................................ 6 1.5 THESIS OUTLINE ............................................................................................................................ 6 CHAPTER 2: BACKGROUND AND LITERATURE REVIEW .................................................... 8 2.1 LITERATURE REVIEW .................................................................................................................... 8 2.2 RELATED WORK ...................................................................................................................... 11 2.2.1 Camera-based Systems ..................................................................................................... 11 2.2.2 Accelerometers and Sensors ............................................................................................ 14 2.2.3 Pads and Mats .................................................................................................................. 19 2.2.4 Exercise Equipment .......................................................................................................... 21 2.3 EXERLEARN SYSTEM’S EXERTION INTERFACE ...................................................................... 24 2.4 SUMMARY AND COMPARISON ................................................................................................. 25 CHAPTER 3: PROPOSED SYSTEM ............................................................................................... 29 3.1 DESIGN REQUIREMENTS ............................................................................................................. 29 3.1.1 Attractive Game ................................................................................................................... 31 V 3.1.2 Quality and Effective Exercise ............................................................................................ 32 3.1.3 Modular Hardware Design ................................................................................................. 35 3.1.4 Learning Experience ........................................................................................................... 35 3.2 TREBLE FLOW MODEL ................................................................................................................ 37 3.2.1 Attractiveness ...................................................................................................................... 38 3.2.2 Effectiveness ........................................................................................................................ 39 3.2.3 Learning Experience ........................................................................................................... 39 3.3 SYSTEM OVERVIEW .................................................................................................................... 41 3.4 OVERALL SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE ............................................................................................ 44 3.4.1 Hardware Components ........................................................................................................ 45 3.4.2 Software Components .......................................................................................................... 46 3.5 USE CASE DIAGRAMS ................................................................................................................. 52 CHAPTER 4: IMPLEMENTATION ................................................................................................ 55 4.1 SYSTEM COMPONENTS AND INTERACTION DIAGRAM ................................................................ 55 4.1.1 The Interaction Diagram of ExerLearn Bike System .......................................................... 56 4.1.2 The Interaction Diagram for The Main User ...................................................................... 57 4.1.3 The Interaction Diagram for The Sub-users ....................................................................... 59 4.2 HARDWARE COMPONENTS .......................................................................................................... 60 4.3 SOFTWARE MODULE AND APIS .................................................................................................. 63 4.3.1 The Microsoft Speech API ................................................................................................... 64 4.3.2 Microsoft Translator API .................................................................................................... 64 4.3.3 Database .............................................................................................................................