Trigger Hunter, 2.0 is an iOS augmented-reality game that was designed in Spring 2017 and developed in Fall 2017. The objective for this application is to teach children about their own asthma and how to manage it in a fun and engaging experience. We decided to teach children specifically about the environmental triggers that can cause asthma and can be found in a common household. With the recent development of mobile augmented reality APKs such as ARKit, we decided to integrate this new technology within our game. In order to map these environmental triggers to the various areas where they would be found in a house, we decided to let parents indicate where their child is in the house instead of using unreliable GPS location services. In order for parents to be involved in such a manner, we separated Trigger Hunter into two applications: the parent app and the child app. In an everyday usage scenario, a parent would use the parent application to indicate where their child is in the house. Once they have done so, a notification pops up on the child's device indicating that is a trigger is nearby. When the child presses on the notification, the child app loads on the screen, and the child will see a "trigger" in the real world space on their phone. Some information will appear about the trigger and how to control your asthma from this specific trigger. The child will then have to answer questions about the information that he/she recently obtained. Upon answering the questions correctly, the child will then have "defeated the trigger" and be done with that particular dose of information about asthma. This application is part of a group of projects dedicated to use mobile augmented reality for asthma management. Specifically this semester, two students, Komal Hirani and Krish Dholakia, are working with Dr. Rosa Arriaga on a design for an application that teaches children about asthma management and is similar to the style of Pokemon Go.
We are interested in ubiquitous computing and the research issues involved in building and evaluating ubicomp applications and services that impact our lives. Much of our work is situated in settings of everyday activity, such as the classroom, the office and the home. Our research focuses on several topics including, automated capture and access to live experiences, context-aware computing, applications and services in the home, natural interaction, software architecture, technology policy, security and privacy issues, and technology for individuals with special needs.
