UnoJoy

BACKGROUND Mueller's research spans interaction design, human-computer interaction, game design, computer science, information science, sports science, philosophy, mechanical and electrical engineering. The ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems is the premier international conference on human-computer interaction, the Games and Entertainment Special Interest Group is a significant part of the program. Arduino is an open-source physical computing platform (based on a simple microcontroller board), and a development environment for writing software for the board so it is simple for researchers, designers, and artists to make novel video game controllers so computers can sense and control more of the physical world. Previously, such research was done by either time-consumingly modifying existing controllers, or adapting their objectives to the limitations of the controllers available then. CONTRIBUTION UnoJoy! is a set of tools for Arduino that enables designers, artists, and researchers the flexibility to create their own custom controllers quickly and easily while maintaining compatibility with existing digital games. UnoJoy! has allowed the exploration of innovative ways of both interacting with games (exploring different ways of associating physical movement and objects with digital gameplay) and providing tools for creating new game experiences (see Toprak et al. Cart-Load-O-Fun) which resulted in two peer-reviewed publications). SIGNIFICANCE UnoJoy! has been adopted by many other researchers exploring new input methods with digital games. UnoJoy! was included in the peer reviewed CHI 2013 video showcase, and the work has been featured on a number of leading maker blogs, including the official Arduino blog.