Two free games designed for autistic children – MotionInput Superhero Sportsday and MotionInput Watersports – are now available for download
The National Autistic Society (NAS) and University College London (UCL) have worked together to create two new computer games specifically designed to be fun and useful for autistic children. MotionInput Superhero Sportsday and MotionInput Watersports can be downloaded free now from the Microsoft store.
A student from Sybil Elgar School testing the MotionInput games, photo courtesy of National Autistic Society
The games are the result of a partnership between the National Autistic Society and a team of master’s and undergraduate students at MotionInput Games – a spinout from UCL Computer Science.
Both games are set on the colourful island of Mauritius and feature sports and watersports such as windsurfing, hang-gliding, cycling, swimming, kayaking, jetpack flying and diving.
Designed for Windows gaming laptops, what makes the games particularly innovative is that they are ‘touchless’, using the webcam to track a player’s physical movements. You play by moving your head, arms and body.
To do this, the games use artificial intelligence (AI), computer vision and machine learning to recognise players and how their gestures or expressions relate to actions during gameplay.
In development, the games were tested by autistic students from Sybil Elgar School in west London and Helen Allison School in Kent. As well as playing the games, the schools’ teaching and therapy teams also provided ideas and feedback on how to make the games fun and useful for autistic children.
The two schools continue to be involved in further MotionInput projects still in development, including a winter version of Superhero Sportsday, an augmented reality (AR) reading app to summarise text, a sensory room app that matches lighting to music, and a range of new interactive games.
Professor Dean Mohamedally, CEO of MotionInput Games, says: ‘Bringing in AI-enhanced interactions is so important for SEND. Some of the movements that we modelled were really based on what the children felt were the most compelling movements in their play. Especially the swimming levels, where the children got to experience it easily by moving like they were swimming, was really special to bring to them.’
Tess Steventon, Occupational Therapist at Sybil Elgar School, adds: ‘As occupational therapists we support the children and young people with their co-ordination and developing new skills. It has been a privilege to be involved with the development of MotionInput Watersports – a revolutionary game which will help students learn to participate in sports including swimming and kayaking.’
Marie-Louise Holmberg, Assistant Principal at Helen Allison School, says: ‘It has been such a pleasure to be a part of this dynamic project, developing meaningful software for the pupils we teach. The innovative use of AI to directly meet the needs of our students, while engaging them in such motivating worlds, will have such an impact on their learning and development. Our pupils had the opportunity to test the MotionInput games in class and had a wonderful day, giving the UCL students direct feedback, to enhance their projects from experience. We are so excited to continue our relationship with UCL as a part of this collaboration.’
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