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PROJECT: Design of Grip Strength Training Rhythm Game

ROLE: UI / UX Design, Systemic Design

DURATION: Fall 2022 (Sep. - Dec.)

Project Vision

Internship of Human Sensing Methods: A Spot Study at the Human Sensing Lab Field experiments and operational experience: Arm muscle measurement combined with M5 Stick C Plus development.

Challenges

  • 1 Develop a rhythm game fortraining elderly people's hand grip strength and brain training
  • 2 On a technical level, twodifferent programs will be used to connect Bluetooth
  • 3 Measurement of hand muscles

Project Beckground

The strength of the grip muscles in the arms of elderly Japanese individuals can affect their overall physical mobility and is often used to determine whether they can maintain a minimum level of independent and autonomous survival ability. Once the physical mobility of elderly people decreases, it can lead to a decrease in social desire and create various difficulties in life.

Grip strength is a physical condition disease of elderly people, especially the cause of Sarcopenia. The Japan Association for Geriatric Behavioral Sciences (2014) evaluated the physical fitness of Japanese elderly people after conducting physical tests, stating that grip strength and maximum walking speed are the two main factors affecting the overall muscle and physical health of elderly people. This study first combed through literature and used the average kilograms of grip strength of elderly people to understand the general grip strength. Then, by measuring angular velocity and acceleration, the range of drum beating movements was defined, and the condition of muscle use was measured.

The main objectives of this study are twofold:

Firstly, by developing a drum game specifically designed totrain grip and striking abilities, promote the training of arm muscles inelderly individuals.
Secondly, it is paired with a user interface that includes cognitive training for the brain, utilizing music therapy and rhythm to help activate the blood flow in the elderly's brain. While playing drum games, dual-task cognitive training can also be combined to achieve the goals of psychological and physical training, and to prevent more severe Alzheimer's disease.

Design Method

The method of measuring in kilograms cannot be achieved solely based on the number of kilograms, so muscle measurement is used instead. The values of high and low grip strength will show different states.

Measurement of acceleration and angular velocity

The research mainly uses measurement methods. After measuring the hand movement status of the human body, the data should be collected using CSV and visualized using Excel to understand the usage of hand movement. The offset values of the three axes should be calculated in milliseconds, and more than 500 pieces of data will be collected each time to achieve the accuracy of the data.

Measurement of Myo

Next, use Myo Realtime to measure the channel of the device corresponding to the hand muscles and drumming movements. This study examined the implementation of an air drum using MYO. MYO is a muscle motion sensing wristband (with electrodes for measuring electromyography inside the strap)that can be worn on the arm to measure not only acceleration and angular velocity, but also EMG for 8 channels (as shown in the figure). By using MYO's acceleration and angular velocity measurement results, the time of drumming can be measured. The muscles in the forearm are numerous, and when lifting the arm and performing drumming movements, three or four types of muscle tissue are used.

Measure Result

Can determine whether the swinging part has risen higher than shown in the figure based on the measurement results. Furthermore, the figure also displays the EMG measurement results during normal and forceful grip. The results show that the electromyography measurement indicates stronger grip strength.

Why

How much grip strength can be measured to enable elderly people to achieve hand grip training? After the measurement is completed, the usage area of the upper arm muscles can be determined, and the corresponding channel values can be obtained on MYO.  

What

Due to the EMG sensor equipped on MYO, muscle activity can be measured during drumming. However, since it measures the muscle activity of the forearm, it can mainly measure the muscle activity when gripping the hand or bending the wrist, rather than the necessary muscles for bending and extending the arm. In addition, the measurement results of the gyroscope sensor will be displayed when the angle at which the arm is lifted changes when the drum is struck.

How

Write programs using two programming languages (C and C #) onArduino and Unity, with Bluetooth as the main transmission control method.

This study has proposed some suggestions for the Taigu interfacefor the elderly. Traditional Taigu games focus on speed and accuracy, which arenot suitable for the elderly. However, interactive elements can now beconsidered under the conditions of MYO measurement. The results show that thefollowing three points are considered valid.

(1) Timely drumming is aimed at improving the control ability ofelectromyography. 
(2) The strength of holding the stick and the angle of swinging thedrum aim to demonstrate greater muscle strength. 
(3) Perform calculations while playing drums with the goal of braintraining. 

In addition, on the user interface of drumming, an icon has beenproposed that can express the above three elements, rather than simply informingthe regular icon during striking.

Final Result

Finally, the results of this study confirm the effectiveness of drumming games in determining the use of arm muscles. Futuristic: We will continue to develop air drum games for the elderly, including drum movements, timing, computational thinking, and brain training responses. It is expected that the elderly will actually undergo testing.

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billowinglight082@gmail.com

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