(04-11-2019, 07:14 PM)GPz4e3D Wrote: I continue to enjoy the VZfit apps and am getting to know the nuances of various games and events. I love having some entertainment/distraction/connections to help with workouts.
A few observations and a story. My children have tried the VZfit and are hooked. Its just fun for them. They talk about it a lot, comparing experiences, and frequently ask to “ride the VirZOOM”. In particular they are into the games. As a parent its great to see them so willingly engaging in exercise on a voluntary basis. Also I would think this bodes well for future adoption, what with the video game generation being young and prominent.
My wife used to work in the local school system with special needs children. One of her go to supports was moderate exercise which she noticed provided a positive effect on behavior and productivity. A few days ago, my wife ran into the mother of one of these children. The conversation turned to the value of exercise and the mom lamented that her son is only interested in video games, fixated on them even. If only there was a way to get him to exercise, she said, it would really help.
And just like that a lightbulb went on, maybe VirZOOM could bridge exercise and video in a productive fashion. We have forwarded the VirZOOM site and background to the mother and will follow up if there is traction and something valuable to learn.
I also came upon this video as I was curious about VR environments and their fit (pun intended?) with people on the spectrum.
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_f...79%2F&_rdr
Eric,
Have you ever considered a VZfit app based on a spin class? This may be blasphemy for street riders, not sure, but I thought about it while on an upward sloping hill in Le Tour event. I tightened the resistance and it reminded me of spin classes.
Just a thought.
Thank you for all the hard work, I am having a ton of fun in the VR worlds you and your team have created.
We feel especially lucky that our products can help kids with exercise and therapy. We've found that VR is natural for them, and it's great to hear that studies have shown a benefit with people on the spectrum. Thank you very much for the video link, I've shared with our team for encouragement.
We've been thinking about spin classes in a few ways. One is whether to focus on people who would get together in a shared space (for gyms) vs people who'd coordinate to be online at the same time (for home). The other is the environment: Le Tour or Explorer naturally represents the hills that instructors get classes to imagine, and your position relative to other riders would show who's on top. But it might also be fun to make a virtual spin class in VR, by putting everyone into a virtual room on virtual spin bikes with the music and lighting you'd expect. The third way is what kind of instructor--could an AI instructor be good enough or do we need a live instructor watching and driving everyone into shape?
In all cases, the challenges are getting that many people to coordinate, licensing the music, and building or representing an instructor that whips everyone into shape. If we could take a step-wise approach what would you tackle first?