'Shrooms' - An (inter)active soccer game for girls
Problem. TNO, Quality of Life, is concerned with the application of ICT to enrich the everyday lives of people. This assignment was to design a game using interactive technology to attract girls to improve their soccer skills. The aim of the game is to increase their confidence and make soccer fun, so that they are motivated to use the community soccer fields.
Approach. Starting with identifying the main obstacles to girls actively participating on soccer fields, it was found that the mental model of girls between 8 and 12 yrs is very different from boys. Play habits of girls in that age-group exhibit more imaginative play, than competitive play. Hence, following a rapid, iterative method, a new physical game was developed that combined the imaginative aspects of play with the skills needed to play soccer. By using sensors and microcontroller networks, the game was experientially enriched with sound and visual feedback, adding to its appeal.
Results. The resulting game, 'Shrooms', involves maneuvering the ball through a field of mushrooms and hitting lit-up target mushrooms while avoiding the unlit ones. The form and colors of the mushrooms, the sounds and the lights are designed to give a very 'computery' feel to the game that the girls can readily relate to.
After understanding the attitude of girls towards the current soccer fields, it was clear that soccer was seen as a very masculine, rough game. The current field/game did not appeal to the imaginative disposition of young girls. In the initial phase, rough ideas were sketched out and prototyped to understand and experience the dynamics of the new game. At this stage emphasis was on speed of idea generation, rather than technological finish.
Girls were involved in multiple stages of the design process. A promising concept as prototyped and tested with them in order to understand whether the game was engaging, understandable and fun. The experiential prototype was developed using the Arduino, Phidgets, max/msp and Ableton Live.
An interesting part of the process was to make postcards explaining the game and the construction. The postcard really helped as a reflective tool to see if things are getting too complicated. If you could be brief, then you were doing fine.