Introduction

Nowadays, people are always facing various kinds of pressure every day, especially the group of students. Lack of exercise is one of the reasons for the excessive pressure on students. How to help students solve the problem of stress is the problem space.

I designed this prototype for this feature. The concept of this project is a fitness sports game which is designed to reduce the pressure. Users can do the sport by using this. You can enjoy the games while doing exercise. The purpose of this project is to make the exercise become interesting, finally to achieve the purpose of reducing the pressure.

Function

1: Start button
2: The area for user select the light
3: Sign light
4: The senson on player's shoes, use to touch the sensor

The Reduce Pressure Mat Prototype

Design Process

Technical & Physical

Disadvantages of sugar:

As shown in the picture, there are cue lights with different colors on the blanket. There will be a button next to each LED light. The lights will turn-on in a different order. The user needs to step on the buttons next to the lights in the same order with the fastest speed. When user press the button, music will be emitted. If the sequence is correct, the lights will all light up, and then a sound of victory will be emitted. If the sequence is wrong, a sound will be emitted when youpress the wrong button.

This design combines running and music, users will run on the carpet in order to achieve a faster speed, while listening to the sound of music can be relieved. On the other hand, the difference colors of LED light is to help users remember the order in which the lights are turn-on. This type of exercise does not become boring, and has the positive effect of encouraging users to exercise. I made a related investigation on the choice of music. A study (Thayer, J. F. 2010) found that light and soothing music can activate the parasympathetic nervous system and help relieve stress.

The connect of Arduino

I have several options in the choice of sensors

Color sensor – My project is related to color, thus the first idea is in my mind is to put the light of the corresponding color and the color sensor together, and trigger the sensor when the light is on. However, this mode is too complicated, which adds a lot of difficulty to later programming.

Light sensor – I wanted to use the light sensor as a button. When the user stepped on the light sensor to block the light to touch the switch, but when connected, I found that the sensor is not sensitive to the light, and sometimes there will be wrong instructions.

Hall effect sensor – I found the hall effect sensor on the tip of the first two sensors. It works by changing the hall sensor's magnetic field with magnets, which convert magnetic or magnetically encoded information into electrical signals that can be processed electronically. Install a magnet on the user's shoe, and user can touch the switch when the magnet and the Hall effect sensor contacted.

Arduino connect

After choice sensor, I began to connect those. The connect method I used:

Interaction

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Reflection

Currently, the ideal final form of Reduce Pressure Mat has not been achieved. Due to my poor unity skills, there is a big gap between the actual product and the expected concept. In terms of physical appearance, the switch that triggers the bulb is less than perfect. The user does not know how to trigger the switch when using the product. Ideally, the product should be easily accessible. Improved accessibility of products can better solve the problem space.

In terms of gameplay, I think this is a success. Our target users are students under pressure, who can easily complete the game and also increase the amount of exercise. Lively music can also relieve stress.

In the future design, I will add the unity part. My idea comes from a piano game. Unity can display different colored squares to prompt the user to touch off the corresponding color lights on the mat, and then the music will automatically played with button. User can play a song by this exercise method. User will listen to soothing music to relieve stress by this way. I think this game mode can make this game more playable.

Based on users feedback, I believe that the user experience of Reduce Pressure Mat is successful.80% of the users think that this product can well solve the problem of students' lack of exercise, and they can get exercise when using Reduce Pressure Mat.64% of users find the game easy to understand and can be played without introduction. 56 percent users said they thought the game relieved stress, with some saying the amount of exercise involved was too small to be effective. In my opinion, Reduce Pressure Mat is suitable for a small amount of exercise, because in this way, users will not have too much exercise and have no energy to do other things, which is contrary to the design concept.