Connecting Power and Play
Investigating Interactive Energy Harvesting in Battery-Free Gaming
James Scott Broadhead (TU Delft - Industrial Design Engineering)
Jasper De Winkel (TU Delft - Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science)
Alejandro Cabrerizo Martinez De La Puente (TU Delft - Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science)
Himanshu Verma (TU Delft - Industrial Design Engineering)
Przemysław Pawełczak (TU Delft - Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science)
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Abstract
Battery-free computer gaming offers a vision of sustainable interaction in which games run on hardware that does not require a battery, yet this approach introduces uncertainty due to frequent power failures. Rather than viewing these failures as limitations, this work examines how integrating energy harvesting with application design can encourage users to reimagine and work with such failures, thus shaping behaviour and supporting device use. We present TURNER, a state-of-the-art modular battery-free games console powered by a hand crank and solar cells, created as a research probe to study how energy harvesting mediates the relationship between power and interaction. In a mixed-methods study (N = 60), we explored the influence of energy harvesting on gameplay. Findings show significant variations in harvesting strategies, with interviews surfacing strategies for creating applications that respond to and build on the patterns of system power failure, the ergonomics of energy harvesting, and the value of embedding energy generation into play. Our work offers insights for interactive, sustainable battery-free computers.
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