Jump On The Line
Studio II 2010 - Craig McNamaraThe Problem?
Exercise sucks. We are a nation after immediate gratification, something exercise does not offer. Exercise is not fun while you're doing it and there are no immediate results. In our projects we wanted to answer the research question: is it possible to create a street computing device that seeks to mask the exertion of exercise with fun?
Our Solution.
Jump On The Line is a 5 meter long interactive, light-up, dance-floor game. It encourages passersby to dance, be active and have some fun. As a player jumps on the illuminated lines on the floor, they are rewarded with hearing familiar songs slowly be revealed. Our game extends the concepts from several pieces of related work.
Studio Themes
Jump On The Line fits well into the Studio themes of Physical Activity and Street Computing. In terms of physical activity, Jump On The Line is an 'exergame' and requires full-body motion from jumping to play the game.
Specific design decisions were also made to ensure the game would fit into a public, street-computing context - the game requires no (or very little) explanation, it does not require the user to have or hold any device and it allows multiple people to play at one time.
How Do You Use It?
When you step on the floor, the beginnings of a familiar song starts to play and panels begin to light up yellow, and move in a linear sequence towards you.
When you jump on a yellow lit up panel, the panel will turn green. If you turn enough panels green, another level of the music will be revealed.
If a yellow lit panel reaches the end of the floor without being jumped on, the panel will turn red and you will be penalized by having a section of the song loop.
Who & Where?
The Jump On The Line game is designed to be installed at the University of Queensland. It has been crafted to the dimensions of the walkway bridge between General Purpose South (Building 78) and Hawken (Building 50). As the game is to be located at University, the game mostly targets University students and staff, however, any able-bodied person can use the game.
Why There?
Besides the location looking very cool, it was actually chosen for some very specific reasons.
- It is located near the top of seldom used stairs,
- It is in a normally low-trafficed area (easy to notice traffic flow chances once installed), and
- It is near the entrance to classrooms.
By positioning the game in this location, we hope that it would help to entice people to use the stairs, and, to occupy themselves with something physical while waiting for their next class.
