Exer-gaming Victoria Nolan Abstract Recently in the US, we have seen an increase in obesity levels amongst children. How can we get these kids more active and to eat healthier in order to flip this trend towards the downward direction. Through an experiment called Exergaming, where we explore the effects that a gaming system that involves physical activity will have. EXS 111 and 129 classes conducted an experiment where we participated in physical activity through Just dance on both Wii and Xbox where all the participants recorded their heart rates before and after we danced. In addition, we also recorded our level of enjoyment of each game system on a 1-10 scale. Can video games help the obesity problem in America? Since so many kids spend hours upon hours a day on these games, it’s smart to make some where kids arent just sitting and moving their thumbs. Will these active games help with getting children’s hear rates going and decrease the obesity rates? Results EXS 111 and 129 classes conducted an experiment where we participated in physical activity through Just dance on both Wii and Xbox where all the participants recorded their heart rates before and after we danced. In addition, we also recorded our level of enjoyment of each game system on a 1-10 scale. I discovered from all of the collected data that there was a correlation with the level of enjoyment and heart rate after participating in the games. I took the average heart rates after participation whose levels of enjoyment were below 5 compared them to the participants who recorded level of enjoyment above 5 for each game system. I found that for the Xbox system participants with a level of enjoyment below 5 had a heart rate of 88bpm and above 5 was 92bpm. For the Wii system the heart rates of the participants below 5 was 98.8bpm and above 5 was bpm. Conclusion My hypothesis for this experiment was correct, and participants who enjoyed the activity on average, had a faster heart rate compared to those who did not enjoy the activity as much. When people enjoy what they are doing, they put more effort into it and work more then people who do not enjoy what they are doing. Some particiants claimed that they danced a little harder on certain songs, which would have caused their heart rates to be a little faster then the songs they did not enjoy as much. In the future, I would like to explore the effects of music specifically the beat, tempo and overall appeal of certain songs compared to how hard people work. What songs get people going more and why do those songs have certain effects? This could then lead to making a ultimate song playlist full of songs that get people moving more, and distribute them to people for when they work out in order to get their maximum potential energy exertion and their heart to beat at its fastest. This could also be distrubted to schools for gym classes to play and get children more active. Hypothesis From the data that was collected from the exer-gaming lab done by professor Alexander Jackson, I think that heart rates of participants who recorded an enjoyment level above 5 will be higher then the participants who recorded an enjoyment level of below 5 on average. This is because I believe that the more they enjoyed the activity, the harder they will work and the more energy they exerted into the Just Dance game, causing their heat rates in beats per minute to be higher.