We are a group of enthusiastic researchers (Academic Staff, Associates, PhD Candidates) working in the broader area of Software and Interactive Technologies, including:
Learning Technologies and Virtual Learning Environments,
Computer - Supported Collaborative Learning,
Game Based Learning and Mobile Learning,
Serious Gam/ Exergames Development and
User Experience Design
To learn more about us visit our lab's website by clicking our logo below.
To learn more about our games visit our games website by clicking our logo below.
an interface to transform video games to a sports experience
Magic-Matt's team won the 3rd IMCL International Student Competition for Mobile Apps that took place in Thessaloniki as part of the 13th International Conference on Interactive Mobile Communication Technologies and Learning, IMCL2019.
NUIs make good use of basic skills that users have acquired through a lifetime of living in the world, which minimizes the cognitive load and therefore minimizes the distraction. NUIs also should always be designed with the use context in mind. No user interface can be natural in all use contexts and to all users. While gestures, voice and touch are important components of many NUIs, they will only feel natural to a user if they match their skill level and their use context.
NUIs should take advantage of the users’ existing skills. If users can apply skills they have from other areas of their lives, they would avoid the trouble of learning something completely new. Once they realize what skills to use, the users can take advantage of their existing skills and expectations to interact with your NUI. There are two ways of doing this:
Reusing common human skills
Reusing domain-specific skills
Common human skills refer to the things that most people know how to do (e.g., speaking), while Domain-specific skills refer to skills of a specific user group (e.g. de-signing NUIs for musicians). NUIs should fit the individual user and his use context if they’re going to feel natural to him. Blake stated that we should think of four guide-lines while we are designing NUIs:
Instant expertise
Progressive learning
Direct interaction
Cognitive load (primarily use innate abilities and simple skills)
AVG innovative aspects is that they can transform a traditional sedentary activity, such as playing video games, in physical exercise. AVG have the potential to in-crease exercise by shifting attention away from aversive aspects and toward motivat-ing features such as competition and three-dimensional (3D) scenery. Participa-tion in AVG compared with traditional exercise can lead to greater frequency and intensity (Annesi et al., 1997) and enhanced health outcomes.
Van Schaik P. et al. stated that older adults preferred cycling with interactive gaming in comparison with traditional stationary cycling. Although promising, there are only limited published data on whether active video games enhanced with NUIs are reliably associated with enhanced physical and cognitive health outcomes, and more-controlled research on the effects of health games is needed.
The main idea was to allow players and interact with MM using their body parts while standing in front of a monitor. For our experiment we decided to use Tetris as the evaluation game (https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/130272053/). The interface was developed to resemble the directional pad of a gamepad which represents the four directions where the player can move. When a player steps on the desired arrow with his foot, the on-screen tile is moving left/right/down or rotating. Also, a fifth key will represent the start/pause function for the game’s flow, if it is needed.
Bio-Feedback device
for student stress awareness
It is a prototype device that classifies bio-signals which are caused by physiological reactions of the human organism. This function enables the interpretation of some basic human emotional reactions, such as anxiety. Intensive emotional states may cause physiological effects such as increased moisture of the human skin and in particular at the ends of the human body, reduced skin temperature and increased heart rate. The device has been developed by our laboratory and it has three sensors counting:
This device is used for student stress detection during synchronous educational activities in the same place or from distance. Students are watching their anxiety levels during their educational activity and they are motivated to apply biofeedback techniques in order to improve their relaxation achieving better performance. Also the teacher watching students’ anxiety is trying to regulate his/her behavior in order to achieve better relaxation and performance of his/her class.
Student stress awareness may be characterized particularly important for distance activities, where there isn’t face to face contact, as an additional communication and interaction feature.
TEAM
Teamwork Evaluation and Assessment gaMe
TEAM is an educational game which, through the simulation of realistic situations, enhances the development, practice and improvement of skills, which are necessary for the people’s professional progress. In particular, this game aims at developing people’s teamwork skills, as they need to work closely with others in order to achieve their common goals.
The user is the one who controls the flow of the game and interacts with the game by choosing among the available options in each situation. On the main game’s screen the script’s characters appear in the center of the screen and below them the dialog box that contains the script’s dialogs. When the user has to choose between the four possible options, the options are displayed in the center of the screen.
If the user has played the game before, seven bars are displayed at the left of the screen, showing the results of his previous attempts. For each type of team skill, there is a bar, which increases dynamically according to the choices made by the user in his current effort.
The evaluation results are encouraging since the student’s opinion was positive. They found the game easy to use, easy to learn and satisfactory. Moreover the results indicate that the game offers enjoyment to the players.
Tennis Attack
Tennis Attack is an interactive 3D video game, that uses the natural user interface Microsoft Kinect, in order to improve response time of, including but not limited to, athletes. The game targets to improve, using entertainment as its vehicle, the response time of the user to important stimuli of everyday life.
Tennis Attack belongs to the category of serious games and in particular, to the category of ActiveVideoGames or AVG that promote exercise and healthy lifestyle converting a traditional sedentary activity into physical exercise. Unity game engine, C# scripts and Zigfu Development Kit or ZDK were used in order to develop Tennis Attack. The game can serve as a tool for measuring and improving simple reaction time (one stimulus - one response). It's partially configurable by the players and allows them to control the number of the balls and the rate at which they will appear on screen.
Scores are stored in a database through a local server and allows the users to monitor their performance and observe their progress.
Locked Safe
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Submarine
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