“Fizzees (Physical Electronic Energisers)” by Daanen, Lee and Sutch
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Title:
- Fizzees (Physical Electronic Energisers)
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Abstract:
There is a current debate across Europe and in the USA about rising obesity figures and a decrease in activity levels generally, and particularly amongst young people. Many reports highlight the role of digital technologies in shifting children’s play into sedentary experiences. This project explores the potential of mobile, wearable technologies to encourage an increase in movement and activity rather than a decline.
Fizzees is a prototype project that enables young people to care for a ‘digital pet’ through their own physical actions. The “Fizzee” lives on a wrist mounted device with no buttons to interact with it. In order to nurture their own Fizzee, keep it healthy and grow it, young people must themselves act in physically healthy ways. Their activity is monitored through an accelerometer in the wrist device in combination with a heart rate monitor chest strap.
The Fizzees project has two objectives: to encourage young people to become more physically active, and to enable them to develop a better understanding of the components of a healthy, active lifestyle. The combination of these two objectives is for young people to develop applied understanding of a healthy lifestyle. By combining a complex maturation structure for the Fizzee, based upon research into healthy activity for young people, coupled with the development of a digital pet, this project aims to provide both the motivation and supporting information and resources to enable young people to develop such applied understanding.
