Catch Me if You Can

Inspiration

In the digital age, our lives revolve around screens - from smartphones to laptops, our eyes are constantly engaged, leading to increased instances of eye fatigue and strain. When eye doctors recommend doing eye exercises, people often feel reluctant and lead to oblivion. Recognizing the need for a solution that is both effective and engaging, we were inspired to create "Catch Me If You Can." This project stems from the desire to blend eye health with technology, specifically targeting the prevalent issue of eye strain in a way that's enjoyable and easy to integrate into daily routines.

What it does

The intention of the project is to gamify eye exercises, making the mundane task of alleviating eye fatigue a fun and interactive experience. Users are prompted to follow a moving dot, visualized as a playful ball. These movements are tailored to address common symptoms of eye strain, encouraging users to engage in practices that promote eye healthcare and mental healthcare, such as looking away from the screen, focusing on distant objects, and following movements that stretch and relax the eye muscles.

How we built it

The application was developed using a combination of modern web technologies and game design principles. We started by mapping out the user experience, ensuring that the exercise patterns were both beneficial for eye health and engaging. Utilizing HTML, and JavaScript, Webgazer library, Python, we created a dynamic interface where the ball (the moving dot) could bounce around the screen in predetermined paths that encourage the user to perform a variety of eye exercises.

Challenges we ran into

One of the major challenges was to seamlessly guide the ball in movements beneficial for eye exercises while keeping the user engaged. Balancing the educational aspect with entertainment required numerous iterations and user testing to get right. Additionally, ensuring that the application was accessible and easy to use for people of all ages presented its own set of challenges, particularly in making the instructions clear and the interface intuitive.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are particularly proud that our project not only addresses a solution for physical health issues but also helps the user to improve their mental health as well. We are also proud of our eye-tracking accuracy.

What we learned

Throughout the development of "Catch Me If You Can," we learned how to integrate everything together particularly how to create compelling gameplay mechanics that can be used to encourage positive health behaviors.

What's next for Catch Me if You Can

Looking ahead, we plan to expand "Catch Me If You Can" by introducing more complex patterns, adding scores and levels, and perhaps multiplayer features to increase motivation and consistency through social interaction. We also aim to explore the potential for integrating augmented reality (AR) technology to enhance the user experience further along with more professional advice. Our goal is to continue evolving the application, making eye health a priority in the digital age in a fun and interactive way.