Scanner Run Jared Wilkin Chris Good

A Children’s Game

What does it do? Scanner Run is a children’s game in which children run back and forth among different lighted game stations. The “brain” of the game is an Ipaq that talks via an embedded mote to the game stations that have a mote and a short range RFID Reader. Children have RFID tags and run to the different stations depending on their team and the particular lights lit at each station. The Ipaq will actually hold several different games, making Scanner Run less of a children’s game and more of a suite of children’s games.

Game Play – Game 1 This will be a game that has two teams (three or more on a side). Initially each team will register with an RFID reader so the system will know what team each child is on. There will be six (or more) stations spread out in a room each with three different colored lights. Once the game has started one of the lights at each station will light up. Each different color is worth a different number of points. A team scores by having one of its members be the first person to arrive at a station after the light has changed, and a player may not score a the same station twice. After a short time interval all of the lights change again causing the players to run to a different station. After a certain amount of time the team with the most points wins.

What is it good for? As computer games become more popular among kids, normal games may not keep children’s attention as well. Certainly in a day where America is having problems with obesity and inactivity in children, a game that can combine technology with physical exercise that can both keep the kids interested and active, could make it to where parents won’t have to pull so many teeth to get their kids to exercise.

Who would buy? Parents Schools Day Care Religious Organizations Anyone that wants to keep a group of kids occupied with a fun and active game.

Related Work Originated from Art student’s ideas, though gameplay design is original to us. To our knowledge a game setup like this has never been done before. We found mention of using RFID for online games (opening doors, etc.). We also found much information on using RFID to track kids, but not in a game environment.

Basic Scenario Elementary PE class:  PE teacher wants to make kids be active as well as interest them by being “High Tech”  Would take a few minutes to arrange the stations  Hand out RFID tagged gloves to children.  Launch ScannerRun executable on the Ipaq.  Use on screen instructions to set up teams and select a particular game.  Let the fun begin!!!

Demonstration What will the demo be like?  One person will be a “teacher” and others will be “children”.  The game will be played in a scaled down setting (i.e. less stations, less distance between game stations, and less intense lights).  The game stations will not be production quality. “Children” will have to be somewhat careful around the stations because they will be more fragile than production stations.

Implementation - Data Flow Diagram

Implementation – Major Components Three Stations  Central “Brain” Station  Team reader Station  Multiple Game Stations Brain Station consists of an Ipaq using a compact flash card containing an embedded mote Team Reader Station will be a short range RFID reader connected to a mote. Game Station will consist of 4 lights, a mote and a short range RFID reader. The fourth light lights on tag read.

Implementation – Interaction Within a Station the RFID reader sends tag ID numbers to mote via its Serial pins All Stations communicate wirelessly using TinyOS Active Messages. The embedded mote in the flash card forwards these packets to the ipaq on its serial port

Implementation – Data Flow Initially packets containing each child’s ID are sent to Ipaq to set up the different teams. Once the game is started, the Ipaq on regular intervals, sends packets to the Game Stations telling them how to behave (which lights to turn on). Game Stations send an ID number each time a child is scanned at that station.

Implementation - Status Most everything is complete. The first game is complete and a framework is intact for easy addition of more games. Besides making additional games, we still need to package up the components into some kind of box to protect the components while the game is played. We also need to find sufficient lights to demo (our current lights are far too dim) and need to set up the fourth light. Test, test, and more test.

Evaluation Much testing and fine tuning are still required, but so far everything seems to be responding sufficiently for a “real time” setting. How Do we evaluate our project?  In the end we want to be able to play our game.  The less required set up the better.  Make sure our design can be extended (Our design can be easily extended because of the framework set up for additional games). What performance tests are important?  Will it operate in a “real time” setting? So far, this is the case.

Future Work Any final physical packaging of components for production quality. Upgrading the lights on the game stations. Adding different games. Changing the User Interface from command line to GUI.