Building intrinsic motivation through the development of an emotional attachment.

My Role

Development, Sensors, Visualization

What it is all about

As we wanted to make ropeskipping more fun we decided to gamificate the training using sound. Make it possible for the user to generate his own sound.
Over time the user can unlock new sounds and thus making the music more diverse. This allows the user to experience his progress on an additional acoustic level.


Connecting digital and physical

The app is focused on serving as a hub for our visualization, which, similar to a pet, grows with the users progress. Investing time and work in its progress should help forming a stronger band between it and the user.
Additionally, to this, abstract form of visualization, we added a statistics page that displays unlocked sounds and overall jumps and tricks performed.

Reflecting the progress

As a general idea we wanted to have one object, that evolves and reflects the users progress. Thus, more experienced the user gets the more interesting the object will appear.
As the form is shaped by real measured data it will look different for every person and reflects each ones jumping behaviour.

Getting closer

As we had the goal of making the handles as small as possible, prototyping was very important. This was our first project using Arduinos and sensors, so had to get a feel for the formfactor and the functionality first. Using small cardboard pieces, that each represented one of the sensors we were able to figure out the most efficient positioning possible. After getting everything working on a breadboard, we 3D printed custom parts to make the electronics fit and soldered our electronics.

A smooth jumping experience

Building the device we knew from the beginning that we wanted to build a really sturdy aluminum handle. Electronic wise, we are using a Arduino Pro Mini, several Sensors and an LED strip that represent the vitality of the visualization. If the life energy is drained, the apps data will slowly be decreased.


What I learned

Weave was in a way a deeper experience than all the other projects. As a tam of three people we worked a whole semester plus the semester break to build a project that included a lot of different areas. Electronics, UI design, software development and a physical part that was handcrafted from experts. As a result we were able to exhibit at a lot of different exhibitions and even won awards.