Musings from Brian J. Noggle

Those Geniuses at MIT

According to the Boston Globe, those young geniuses at MIT have come up with a way to meld exercise with video games to make exercise "fun":

The hot-air balloon was too low, much too low. A mountain loomed ahead, its granite wall reaching out to smash the fragile basket. Daniele De Francesco had only seconds to react. So De Francesco did the only thing he could do. He pedaled faster.

It worked. On the TV screen in front of him, the balloon slowly rose, clearing the peak with room to spare. De Francesco even got a couple of bonuses. He snared a floating gold coin worth 50 points, as well as a vigorous cardiovascular workout.

As a 2000 graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, De Francesco still has use of the school's Zesiger Sports and Fitness Center. That's why he's one of the test subjects for an MIT project that merges video gaming with physical fitness.

It's called CycleScore, and it's a recumbent bicycle connected to a personal computer programmed with a simple, engaging game. CycleScore transforms the bike's pedals and handlebars into game controllers, and offers a game program that rewards steady effort and the occasional burst of speed. There's even a touch of the shoot-'em-up, as the balloonist can fire missiles at passing targets for extra points. The idea is to create a system so interesting and enjoyable that people will forget they're sweating.

Wow! He's got to have a Super Genius business card to recreate Prop Cycle, a Namco video game from 1996.

Milennium Arcade had one of those in Crestwood. In 2001, I played it several times and told everyone I was going to open a chain of health clubs where all the cardio equipment had a video game component.

I am going to be a little saddened when someone with, you know, follow-through comes along and makes money off of it. Kinda like that database with a Web front end wherein you can enter little scraps of information and links and the software will serve it up as a Web page. Something else I didn't follow up on when I had the idea in 1998.

- posted by Brian J. @ 7:39 PM