TECHFIT showcases student-created exergames

During their demonstration, the red team of the Sunnyside Broncho Attack team tries to knock balls off of the opposing teams’ poles. Sensors are attached to each pole to verify when a ball is knocked off and to keep track of how many times it occurs.

Team 2 from Lafayette Sunnyside, also known as Broncho Attack, was named the overall champion of the 2015 TECHFIT showcase December 10.

The TECHFIT (Teaching Engineering Concepts to Harness Future Innovators and Technologists) project is designed to use kids' interest in video games and problem-solving to inspire them to gain the STEM skills needed to invent technology-based fitness games that battle childhood obesity.

The project is headed up by Purdue professors Brad and Alka Harriger, in collaboration with faculty from the College of Charleston, S.C.

"TECHFIT students are inventing functional games that occupy a large portion of a gym floor, incorporate lights that turn on and off, buzzers that sound and sensors that detect movement," Alka Harriger said. "They involve groups of students and are all designed and programmed by the students themselves."

One student told the local news station that after participating in the project that she wants to be a programmer. And that is the goal of the National Science Foundation-funded project.

Watch WLFI coverage of TECHFIT.

Read the official Purdue news release.
 

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