MCL featured in NSF video

I work for two different research labs. In the Media Convergence Laboratory I am involved in a physical therapy project where we are developing an augmented reality system. It uses motivational gameplay to distract patients while they work on recovering control of their arms, which has provided some interesting challenges in game design for people with unique needs.

Recently a film crew came to visit our lab. While they mostly focused on our forest fire simulation program, you can see some of the Paint prototype we developed as our proof of concept. In Paint, the patient wears head-tracked passive stereo glasses and holds a real paint brush. Their view into the virtual room changes as they move their head, allowing for easy access to the fruit bowl (subject of the painting), canvas, and color selection. The action of painting on the virtual canvas requires range of motion for the arm and generates a fair amount of fatigue (in this case, a desirable trait).

Here’s the link. See 00:28 for a snippet of our project as demonstrated by Steven Braeger.