food practice shooter

Posted on 07/10/2013 by Nick van Lanen

Assistant professor Takayuki Kosaka created a game that teaches kids to eat (and like) vegetables. In his game carrots, green peppers and tomatoes are bullets, that the player uses to save the city from giant vegetables. When they run out of ammo, they must put down their gun, eat the matching food and smile into a camera placed on the gun (in order to associate eating vegetables with the positive feelings of smiling). Only after performing these steps, the game will resume.
The cups that contain the vegetables are placed on a digital scale and the headphone the player needs to wear, is equipped with ‘chewing sensors’. This way the Food Practice Shooter knows if you’re cheating. So to win the game, kids need to get over their aversion to vegetables. According to Kosaka, kids will eat things they don’t really like, in order to play games they do like.


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