Breath of Life

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  Our logo.

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  App screen shot

Inspiration

Like many, we have spent the majority of the last 18 months in front of our computers listening to lectures, working remotely and connecting with our loved ones via video conferences. We have to admit that, during this time, we found it hard to motivate ourselves to actively work for our well-being or just take a moment to relax and instead prefered to escape from reality for a few hours playing video games or binge-watching series. We want to use this seeming flaw to our advantage and move people like (and including) us to improve their health by creating a game experience so compelling, they won't even notice they are playing a health game.

Game idea (our vision)

"In der Ruhe liegt die Kraft" (in English, "strength lies in calmness") - literally! You are the apprentice of a old and wise Zen master, and together you travel to a far away desert to commence your training. You will learn breathing techniques which will allow you to summon clouds and rain at your will, the deeper your breath the more powerful and controlled the reaction. Marvel at the flowers and trees that emerge as you master the Tree Pose and transform the dreary wasteland into a beautiful oasis!

Current state of the project and ideas for the future

We implemented a 3D desert environment and model of a penguin (as substitute Zen master) that can (but currently is not, due to lack of appropriate devices) be presented in virtual reality scenarios, e.g. for smartphone-based solution using a head mount or VR headsets. We collected real-time data from the Garmin watch, e.g., breathing intervals. We wanted to use its accelerometer to identify simple arm movements of the user, for example, slowly raising the arms up.

Additionally, we trained a machine learning model with the help of the Huawei Mobile Services Toolkit, using a dataset provided by CSS which contains sound samples of people inhaling and exhaling. The idea was to use the model to classify the audio collected by the microphone in real time (similar to the already existing HMS sound detectors), to let the user control the game with different type of breathing exercises. The benefit of using this approach, is that we can differentiate between various types of breathing, e.g., through the mouth or nose, which would have different outputs in the final game. But we sadly could not incorporate our sound model into the code in time.

Summary

The aim of this game is to help the user relax by breathing consciously while having an enjoyable experience, which motivates the user to come back to the game regularly.

Built With

• android-studio
• csharp
• garmin
• hms
• java
• unity