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We present a work-in-progress design of an interactive game to support the training of upper limb reaching for elderly post-stroke survivors so as to improve their motivation and adherence toward rehabilitation exercises. Consisting of 64 tactile buttons and 64 Red, Green, Blue (RGB) Light-Emitting Diodes (LEDs) that are equally distributed across a (8 x 8) grid structure of translucent acrylic cubes, the gameplay guides players to perform directional reaching motions for therapeutic effect through the selective or randomized controlled lighting of cubes across the physical board. This is immediately followed by pressing each of them to turn them off. Varied LED colors provide additional playful or cognitive challenges, e.g. using each hand for a specific color. The user interface of the game prototype was tested by four elderly stroke survivors with initial feedback indicating that it may be sufficiently intuitive to create engaging rehabilitation experiences for this user base.

This paper recognizes and reflects upon the important co-creativity roles and intimacies that arts students may play in increasingly interdisciplinary environments where research and design potentials of evolving new media technologies are being explored. We report a real-world case study where two students played the dedicated artists' roles of art and game design developments while working with staff researchers from technical, design and social science (education) backgrounds to develop an outdoor location-based handheld augmented reality game project. The paper relates how a clearer understanding of such didactic situations can empower and invoke co-evolutions of both art and technology.

The rapid development of handheld Augmented Reality (AR) technologies has raised profound interests in the design of handheld AR games. Studies in this area however did not draw attention explicitly on design concepts, especially in the possible exploitation of their inherent characteristics to impact game experiences. Based on literature review, this paper identifies the game elements that are designed based on, or around the definitive advantages and/or limitations of handheld AR as a form of pervasive technology that may affect game play experiences. Handheld AR game experiences are examined and can be described through a proposed triarchic interplay of coherent associations comprising of fundamental system, interaction and application levels. Future work will include intricate studies on game design for handheld AR games, so as to extend the current findings with other integrative game design and technological elements.

Interaction is a prominent feature that distinguishes computer (video) games from other kinds of entertainment [1, 2]. Given that Augmented Reality (AR) presentations enable the creation of user interactions that expand traditional HCI from 2D to 3D spaces, this offer an ideal opportunity for game developers to design more playful and interesting mobile AR games that embed various interaction forms. This paper introduces a mobile AR cooking game that is based on the integration of adopted AR interaction and user interface principles in its design flow. These embedded interactions are designed with considerations and spatial mappings to real cooking mechanisms in order to provide a unique gaming experience and increased engagement for a better overall AR interaction on the multimodal mobile device.

In this paper, a mobile approach for ambient learning is presented. As an example of the concept, modeling is done to deliver educational content on weather phenomenon to schoolchildren. Information visualization techniques are utilized to present an alternative approach of knowledge delivery that could be considered to be beyond conventional classroom based teachings. The concept is demonstrated with the ‘Interactive Weather Information System’ (IWIS) platform. During the user tests, the effectiveness of the proposed method on knowledge conveyance was evaluated. Usability tests showed that IWIS serves as a good stimulus to captivate the learning interests of the target user group (children from 10 to 12 years old). In addition, the new issues that surfaced could be used as design considerations or factors in subsequent research work in this area.

This study establishes a new painting experience that entails an AR-based approach that augments regular freehand 2D sketches into a Chinese painting artwork. Within the study, the realistic diffusion of ink can be interactively generated for users to create works inspired by the Chinese painting style as well as to unveil the opportunity for users to model up their own augmented information without any pre-building processes, potentially spanning the applications of AR in alternate directions.

Information empowers those who make sense from its successful interpretation; this is especially true on the subject of weather where the recipient is required to have prior forms of fundamental understanding towards the natural occurring phenomenon and its effects. This study facilitates the learning of complex weather phenomena for children using a unique educational approach using mobile technology. The initiative runs under Singapore's National Weather Study Project (NWSP), which already operates a network of mini weather stations in schools across the state to promote environmental awareness and support dynamic interactions with real time data. Its data is accessible via Web, Microsoft SensorMap and Google Earth interfaces. IWIS, an application for the recent Google Android mobile platform taps onto the fusion of mapping and the weather project server's data to present to children accessible local multi-variate weather data depicted using visual metaphors and propagates the development of mobile learning applications in the imminent future.