Fostering body movement in children through an exertion interface as an educational tool
We present an exertion interface called the Interactive Slide (Soler, Ferrer, Parés, 2009), a large inflatable slide augmented with virtual reality technology that offers the possibility to children to move freely in a large and diverse spatial area. Diversity of motor skills actions that children do while playing were analyzed with observational methodology and sequential analysis through temporal pattern detection (T-patterns) to obtain behavior motor responses. The results reveal that the strategic virtual games of this Interactive Slide stimulate a large number of motor skills and a rich variability of them. Thus, in a pedagogical sense, it optimizes body movement in children while exergaming. ; Part of this project is funded by the grants from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation:/n"Method for the Control and Regulation of Physical Activity of Children through a Novel Platform for Full-body/nInteractive Experiences called the Interactive Slide" (CRAFTI), grant TIN2010-18268/n"Avances tecnológicos y metodológicos en la automatización de estudios observacionales en deporte", grant/nPSI2008-01179/nWe also gratefully acknowledge the support of the Catalan government Project (GRID) (2009 SGR829).