Statement of Purpose - Details
We envisage the basic process as not dealing with attempting to get precise
control as in flight/ping-ping, but instead that which will use cooperation
as a focus. Consider for instance a rowing simulation. Two teams from each side
of the room. A heavy beat is heard. The objective is to sycronize to the beat.
The more bats of the same color changing at the beat, the stronger the oar row. Next beat,
each individual person must use the opposite color (or not - if they are
trying to sync with the "boat". As the beat speeds up, people have less
time to change.
This will be our initial application, both allowing us to get our hands dirty
and to see how a temporal based form of participation compares with the current
Cinematrix interaction paradigm.
From there we may branch out in several directions based on the audience response
to the initial demonstration
- The rowing simulation may be extended to an elaborate boat with control over
paddles on both sides. Stronger rows could now change the boat
direction (previously just speed was modified).
- Graphics work to generate a 3d rowing simulation, and other obvious whizzy
improvements towards a killer ap.
- The more ideas the merrier at this stage. Plenty of time to discard still . . .
Discarded ideas
- In conjunction with all the above, model the process the group undergoes when
interacting to a new game. We would hope that this would allow is to predict what the group
would do in reacting to a novel situation, helping to direct game design
and would be a testing ground for whatever theories we throw out in
class.
- Come up with a qualitative means of analyzing audience response to the
systems. A metric will have to capture level of frustration, enjoyment of game,
amount of team building developed...
- The implementation of a game of checkers
or noughts/crosses and having a group challenge an individual. We're considering
something akin to a roulette wheel to allow the next move to be chosen. Alternatively,
a scenario in conceivable where each of all the possible pieces
that could be moved are lighted up one by one, and the group is polled as
to which move is best. We hope this would be an interesting experiment to see
how the group performs compared to the individual in such cases, and that it can
be constructed to fit our temporal/cooperative paridgm, as opposed to the
current precision/disjunctive approach.
Last Updated: Feb 3 1995.
josullvn@cs.cmu.edu