Tag: GameBus

Master Thesis defense by Maarten Kooijman on GameBus

On Monday, February 15th, 2016, Maarten Kooijman will defend his master thesis entitled “The potential of a mobile health rewarding app (GameBus) for people with  Intellectual disabilities”.  Everyone is cordially invited to join to learn, ask questions and give feedback.

Where: TU/e, Paviljoen building, room K10

When: 13:00-14:00

Stakeholders:

  • Supervisors TU/e: Dr. P.M.E. (Pieter) Van Gorp, Prof. Dr. J.H.D.M (Joyce) Westerink
  • Supervisors Lunet Zorg (the home care organization at which the practical work was performed): P. (Patrick) Leijte, R. (Ruud) Kavelaars, H.J. (Henk) van Heffen

Subject headings: HEALTH CARE; E-HEALTH; M-HEALTH, GAMIFICATION, INTELLECTUAL DISABILLITIES

Abstract: This research describes the results of a six-month graduation project within the GameBus project. GameBus is a novel app, developed within a multinationality collaboration. The app engages families and friends to stay active physically, cognitively and socially via an enjoyable personalized gaming experience. GameBus connects children, colleagues, the elderly and other family members to join physical, cognitive and social challenges, and it is unique because it crosses the boundaries of existing health apps. The app was not designed explicitly for people with intellectual disabilities. However, some issues (e.g., social isolation, insufficient physical exercise, etc.) play a role in the care for people with intellectual disabilities, as they do in care for the elderly. Therefore, it is worthwhile to investigate if health-rewarding apps like GameBus can play a role within healthcare organizations for people with intellectual disabilities. Via this master thesis project, it has been examined which clients are eligible for GameBus and how the app might be used in the future. The findings and experiences of clients and client supervisors with the application of GameBus are presented. Three promising use cases were found in which GameBus can play a role. GameBus is a valuable way to motivate and stimulate clients to perform physical, social, cognitive and other (e.g., domestic) activities.

GameBus: refinement of business model and initial sketches of UI flows

Yesterday, 29-01-2015, was a great day for GameBus. Paul Brouwers and Carolina Gomez Naranjo crashed the office of me, Pieter Van Gorp, to discuss their current versions of the GameBus business model and the screenflows for the mobile App.

GameBus: initial business model and screenflows
Paul and Carolina in the office of Pieter Van Gorp

It is tough to say no when a motivated and bright team enters your office with promising results.  In any case, GameBus consumes most of our days since its formal start this Month…

Today, we have hands on evaluations of Rapido on the agenda.  We will play BuzzTag etc. outdoors (in the snow).  More about that later…

Preparations for GameBus are heating up!

While work on the GameBus project will officially start in January 2015, we are already making various preparations.  The most important preparation is the recruiting of two new group members.  One group member has been selected from the User System Interaction pool of PDEng trainees.  This member will focus on the end user experience as well as on the business model aspects of GameBus.  A second PDEng trainee was selected from the Software Technology pool.  This member will focus on the integration of game components on the bus.

Besides PDEng projects, we have defined two master thesis projects on GameBus.  One student will focus on GameBus business model aspects as part of a graduation in Innovation Management.  A second student will focus on GameBus backend aspects as part of a graduation in Business Information Systems.

A GameBus kick-off meeting will be organized as a side activity of the EIT ICT Labs Health and Wellbeing End-of-Year Event 2014.  In this way, we involve also our Italian partners in the preparations such that in January 2015 we can take a flying start!

Stay tuned…