skip to main content
10.1145/1255047.1255106acmconferencesArticle/Chapter ViewAbstractPublication PagesesemConference Proceedingsconference-collections
Article

How to build a hard-to-use mouse

Published: 13 June 2007 Publication History

Abstract

Computer games do not afford much physical activity and hence do not require significant energy expenditure, which can contribute to the prevalence of a sedentary lifestyle. A "hand exerciser" handgrip can help strengthen hand and forearm muscles through a simple spring mechanism. We are presenting the mousegrip, an exertion interface to control computer games while simultaneously exercising hand and arm muscles based on a handgrip device. Unlike conventional vision or accelerometer-based exertion interface devices, the mousegrip is very low-cost and supports cheap force-feedback through a simple spring mechanism. Due to its low cost, its mobile form factor and compatibility to existing mouse drivers, the mousegrip can augment traditional mouse interactions with an exertion activity to make exercising more enjoyable, and gameplay healthier. It provides a familiar affordance of interaction and supports increased calorie expenditure, hence contributing to people's fitness. We hope to encourage other researchers to incorporate exertion activity into their interfaces in order to support a healthy lifestyle.

References

[1]
Hitti, M. Handgrip Exercises May Lower Blood Pressure. WebMD Oct 8, 2004. http://www.webmd.com/content/article/95/103180.htm
[2]
http://stoppong.com.au
[3]
Mueller, F., Agamanolis, S., Picard, R.: Exertion Interfaces: Sports over a Distance for Social Bonding and Fun. In Proc. CHI 2003. Fort Lauderdale, USA: ACM Press, USA (2003).
[4]
Stettler, N., Signer, T., Suter, P. Electronic games and environmental factors associated with childhood obesity in Switzerland. In Obesity Research. 2004. 12:896--903.
[5]
Top End Sports. Handgrip strength test. http://www.topendsports.com/testing/tests/handgrip.htm
[6]
Vandewater, E., Shim, M., Caplovitz, A. Linking obesity and activity level with children's television and video game use. In Journal of Adolescence, Vol. 27, Issue 1, Feb. 2004, 71--85.

Cited By

View all
  • (2017)Misrepresentation of Health Research in Exertion Games LiteratureProceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3025453.3025691(4899-4910)Online publication date: 2-May-2017

Index Terms

  1. How to build a hard-to-use mouse

    Recommendations

    Comments

    Information & Contributors

    Information

    Published In

    cover image ACM Conferences
    ACE '07: Proceedings of the international conference on Advances in computer entertainment technology
    June 2007
    324 pages
    ISBN:9781595936400
    DOI:10.1145/1255047
    Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

    Sponsors

    Publisher

    Association for Computing Machinery

    New York, NY, United States

    Publication History

    Published: 13 June 2007

    Permissions

    Request permissions for this article.

    Check for updates

    Author Tags

    1. RSI
    2. active
    3. exercise
    4. exertion interface
    5. exhausting
    6. handgrip
    7. physical
    8. sports
    9. sweat
    10. tangible

    Qualifiers

    • Article

    Conference

    ACE2007
    Sponsor:

    Acceptance Rates

    Overall Acceptance Rate 36 of 90 submissions, 40%

    Contributors

    Other Metrics

    Bibliometrics & Citations

    Bibliometrics

    Article Metrics

    • Downloads (Last 12 months)0
    • Downloads (Last 6 weeks)0
    Reflects downloads up to 12 Feb 2025

    Other Metrics

    Citations

    Cited By

    View all
    • (2017)Misrepresentation of Health Research in Exertion Games LiteratureProceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3025453.3025691(4899-4910)Online publication date: 2-May-2017

    View Options

    Login options

    View options

    PDF

    View or Download as a PDF file.

    PDF

    eReader

    View online with eReader.

    eReader

    Figures

    Tables

    Media

    Share

    Share

    Share this Publication link

    Share on social media