Video games have opened possibilities beyond mere “gaming.” While no one is actually going to be a rock star playing the various musical themed games, the wave of Rock Band and Guitar Hero have reportedly inspired some young musicians while more recent releases have actually utilized more realistic instruments. On the fitness side of things games have tried to encourage exercise, with motion control opening up new possibilities.
But just as real music isn’t actually being created with video game controllers, real exercise isn’t happening either. And the interesting part is that it should be so hard. Dr. Werner Schoeman is one researcher who thinks that video game systems could be used as exercise machines.
“There remains a significant market segment untapped in the cycling game genre,” Dr. Schoeman tells KineticShift.com, “specifically it has been a practical hardware interface that has proven difficult. Most cycle simulator games require you to buy the whole cycle, such as the typical cycle simulator games found in up market gyms.”
Schoeman instead believes that the Nintendo Wii could be a way to bypass this bulky and expensive hardware, where a small infrared LED could be attached to one peddle of a cycle/elliptical trainer/spinning cycle.
“The Wii remote would of course sense the infrared light and utilizes the reciprocal motion from A to B as the binary speed parameter,” says Schoeman. “With this configuration, any reciprocal motion can be used, in other words any exercise bike / device that has a peddle going up and down – no need to buy a specific cycle.”
He adds that users would only need to do a speed calibration to check the maximum cycling speed to correspond to the ‘full throttle’ parameter on the acceleration input. The biggest drawback would be that the cycling resistance would not be automatically altered as with the gym cycles, and it would be operator dependent.
“You could be able to work it into the game, with visual cues to increase/decrease the cycling resistance,” says Schoeman. “There are various good cycle game software already developed, and it would not be too difficult to just integrate. The setup would be most suited for a spinning cycle/stationary exercise cycle, and there would be a large market share with cyclist who do home training on spin cycles / road bikes on rollers. A second infrared LED attached with an elastic band to the gamers head can be used to steer the bike by tilting the head side-ways.”
For now Schoeman is eager to get game developers on board, but if he can it could really change the way riders stay in gear in those winter months.