Exerlearn Bike: An Exergaming System for Children's Educational and Physical Well-Being

Abstract

Recently, games that incorporate exertion interfaces have emerged and are gaining attention from both academic researchers and commercial companies. Exergaming refers to video games that promote physical activity through playing. Exergames are believed to be a good method of promoting physical activity in children. Such games encourage children to engage in physical activity while enjoying their gaming experience. Nonetheless, we wanted to investigate whether combining exercising and learning modalities could be more beneficial for children's well-being. In this paper, we present our exergaming system called the ExerLearn Bike System, which combines both physical and educational aspects. The ExerLearn Bike System not only engages children in exercising through playing, but also provides them with learning experiences at the same time. We adopted a modular design approach that makes it possible to use any stationary bicycle as an input interface by attaching a number of devices on the bike.