INTEGRATING AUGMENTED SENSE EXPERIENCES INTO INTERACTIVE TOYS

A Dissertation Submitted to Zhejiang University
for the Degree of Bachelor of Engineering

He Zhao
June 2009


Abstract

Toys are not only for entertainment, they are also essential to children's 
development. Children are extremely curious about unknown factors hidden in
life, they have great needs in acquire knowledge and discovering the world.
With toys, children learn to solve problems, to social and to practice their 
skills. With the development of technology, more and more children are 
fascinated by auditory and visual impact brought by video games, and radually 
they are losing interest in traditional toys. Sitting in front of computer 
all day long and not talking to real people are harmful to children's both 
physical and social skills. To design interactive toys or game platforms with 
great sensory impact meanwhile being physically and mentally positive to 
children is an import issue.

This thesis describes the concept of augmented sense, and it also presents 
our vision of interactive toy design: a model based on augmented sense which 
centers on needs of children. This model augments and visualizes children's 
primitive senses by capturing them with various analog sensing devices and 
then integrating with hardware and software embedded in the toy or the game 
platform. The goal of this model is to augment sensory impact on children, 
meanwhile to meet their specific needs.

We illustrate this model with two prototype game platforms - Bubble Journey 
and Run Chicken Run! - to identify underlying research issues.


Keywords: Augmented sense, interactive toy, interaction design, 
human-omputer interaction, user-centered design