Astrojumper: Designing a virtual reality exergame to motivate children with autism to exercise

Children with autism show substantial benefits from rigorous physical activity, however it is often difficult to motivate these individuals to exercise due to their usually sedentary lifestyles. To address the problem of motivation, we have developed Astrojumper, a stereoscopic virtual reality exergame which was designed to fit the needs of children with autism. During the game, virtual space-themed objects fly forward toward the user who must use their own physical movements to avoid collisions. Preliminary playtesting of Astrojumper on neuro-typical participants has been positive, and we plan to run an extensive evaluation assessing the psychological and physiological effects of this system on children with and without autism.