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I CAME TO Ireland from Poland eight years ago, when I was just 15 years old, and since then I have been living in Kilkenny. I studied Computer Games Development in IT Carlow and absolutely loved it. I’m an avid gamer and I was also really interested in software development from an early age, so deciding on what I wanted to study was a relatively easy decision for me.
The course in IT Carlow is aimed at creating the next generation of professional game developers, and while I was there I was able to learn all about software development and game design, over a four year period. As part of my final year project, I was given the chance to develop a prototype app for the PIP, a biosensor which helps manage stress. The PIP uses changing stress levels to influence progress in a gaming style app, helping users learn to manage stress.
As part of my project, I developed a prototype app in which you snuck around a castle, trying to avoid the guards. The more stressed you got, the more difficult the game would become. The only way to win was to relax.
I graduated in June 2014 and, like many graduates, I found myself facing a difficult decision – should I keep going on with my studies and do a postgraduate course, or should I try to get a job and get real world experience as soon as I finish my course?
I found out about the Irish Research Council’s Employment Based Postgraduate programme through my supervisor, and the attraction for me was that I didn’t have to make the decision between research and work – as through this programme, I can work on my research masters and at the same time get valuable work experience.
Since graduation, I have been working for the GameCORE Research Centre at IT Carlow and with the assistance of my supervisor Daire Ó Broin, Lecturer of Computer Games Development at IT Carlow, we identified Galvanic – the company behind the PIP – and found their goals match the research we are doing at GameCORE.
In today’s busy world, life is full of stress. It’s something that affects most people on a day-to-day basis and usually can be managed or coped with one way or another. Sometimes it can really get on top of us and we can become overly stressed – I know myself how the stress of exams and assignments can really get to you.
The good news is there are new techniques and ways to manage and reduce our stress emerging all the time. And it’s no surprise, that in today’s digital world, technology is increasingly being used to help manage stress.
New technology resources can now work towards helping reduce our stress levels – particularly in the workplace – and at the same time also improving levels of productivity and efficiency.
The PIP is tackling this problem by combining bio-sensing technology and apps to help improve user’s health and wellbeing. The key to unlocking the benefit of this type of technique is user engagement – like learning any new skill, repeat practise is required. That is why incorporating gaming elements is key to hooking users’ attention and drawing them back again and again.
There was a natural fit between my research interests and the PIP. My research will focus on ‘enhancing engagement in stress reduction apps using game elements’, and drawing on my undergraduate studies, I will be investigating and testing gaming elements in stress-reduction apps. Over a 12 month period, I will conceptualise, design and develop a prototype app for the PIP and the end result will be to prepare and submit papers for Irish and leading European Gaming Conferences.
The gaming industry in Ireland includes big players like EA, Activision Blizzard and Zynga alongside smaller independent game studios. The PIP is part of a growing number of digital health start-ups based in Ireland, yet it’s the only company to combine a biosensor and gaming-style apps to help improve user’s health and wellbeing. My hope is that my experience working with them will help enhance my employment prospects within this niche industry.
Ultimately, I would love to pursue a career in gaming and software development, and I believe that this programme will give me industry experience developing commercial apps, and a qualification at the same time. It’s a definite win-win.
Mateusz Cieslak, 23 years old, is one of 48 postgraduate research students in Ireland to be awarded the Irish Research Council’s Employment Based Programme Awards. The €4.5 million fund was awarded to postgraduate students in all academic disciplines from across the country and will enable them to work and undertake research in a business, not-for-profit, NGO or governmental organisation.
For more information on the Irish Research Council’s Employment Based Programme, visit the website.
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Hi journal could you please print more articles like this so I can show them to my girlfriend and convince her that me buying a Ps4 will not turn me into a sedentary immobile cabbage as she seems to believe it would? Thanka
Forget about your ps4 and build a pc for gaming :)
is that not a good bit more expensive/hassle? Though it has the Trojan horse advantage that I could pretend Im dropping a grand on it for its amazing word processing capabilities only to “discover” it can be used for games too once its in the door!
If you love gaming you’ll know the difference between console and PC gaming and money won’t come into it :)
My gaming pc only cost 200 more than my xbox one/ps4. The extra you spend you will save after buying 10 full price AAA games from steam.
Pc can be built for €600 and upgraded when needed. Lasts longer and games are cheaper.
Gaming PC pffft. How long are you waiting to play Gta 5 now?
I’d love to build a gaming PC someday.
T
Great piece. I’d even argue that games in themselves are a great stress reliever, without even trying to establish the link as directly as you have with the PIP. I find them great for blowing off some steam.
So sick of the ridiculous articles about games and ‘de-sensitising’ that do the rounds every so often, nice to read one without the scare-mongering!
I think it depends a lot on the type of game and the player’s personality. When I play CS:GO I don’t usually find it relaxing. Fun, yes, but stressful! Skyrim I find relaxing and I play a game called Cue Club. I think that open world games can be the best for relaxing and de-stressing (although a lot can be said for unloading a machine gun into a swarm of monsters attacking you!) as you can usually do whatever you like. I remember playing GTA3 years ago and just driving around. That’s it. Having fun driving around the city and trying out different vehicles.
I’d agree that gaming is a nice way to put the feet up and relax… right up to the point where I discovered Dark Souls and my blood pressure has never been the same since!
I hear that game is brutally tough, lol.
I’ve started playing Risk of Rain. It’s fun but you will die a lot. Like most roguelikes.
Games are for children. Any grown man playing computer games deserves to be neutered at the balls.
Newsflash many games aren’t actually made for children, the biggest selling games are always over 18′s and the average age of a typical “gamer” is actually 31 http://venturebeat.com/2014/04/29/gaming-advocacy-group-the-average-gamer-is-31-and-most-play-on-a-console/
Closer inspection of your profile pic and the name ‘anto’ has ruled your opinion null and void.
Games are for children? Really? Have you heard of F.E.A.R., Amnesia the dark descent, GTA, Silent Hill or Dead Space? Don’t think the developers had children as their target market there.
Or you could do some exercise or something useful. Gaming is an absolute waste of time. It’s bad enough children playing but anyone still interested in games as an adult needs to grow up.
I don’t have a TV. I agree most programming these days is even more moronic than wasting your life prancing around virtual reality.
I bet you sit on the sofa like a lemon watching rubbish tv shows on your laptop while your brain melts away. At least with gaming you’re using it.
Touch a nerve did I lads? Keep wasting you’re lives away, no skin off my back.
Your.
I’m certainly not wasting my life away. I find gaming relaxes me, makes me forget the troubles at hand. Get this, I read books too.
Endas too busy wrecking the country to have the time to play a game and chill out. If he’s as good at gaming as he is at running the country yeah you get my drift. )
Tell me how the typical evening goes in your house Enda, and please be honest. What do you do to chill out and take the edge off the day?
Enda stop being a right old one and get with the times grandad
It’s hard enough to get the kids off these games as it is,don’t want them to see this,or it will be impossible
Exactly, like the world needs more man-babies.
It’s better than watching tv.
I know the kids today with their “pop music” and “vidja games” in your day I bet you had a stick and were happy with that ehh?
Luddites
All the wives and girlfriends will be on giving out about their men folk anytime now. I have a ps4 it’s an excellent piece of equipment for helping to just loose yourself for a while in a game. I will admit you don’t notice the time go though. My wife thinks I’m a man child I keep telling her there are millions of men out there that are gamers. Don’t smoke or gamble I do exercise and have a hobby and spend quality time with the family so what harm is it to loose yourself in a game every and then while she’s down watching X factor or I’m a celebrity or strictly come dancing or East Enders or emerdale etc etc,so you see girls lighten up on the lads and their gaming.
Leslie: Teach your children time management skills, and if they are too young to self regulate then its your job to do it with them. Certain types of Games are excellent for children’s’ development – but like all things in life there must be moderation.
Gaming isn’t just for kids or adult men – women are a huge part of the gaming market. I’m an avid gamer and playing online is a wonderful sort of socialising. When my kids are in bed, I get to hang out with my international gaming mates from the comfort of home, and I’ve travelled to spend time with some in countries and cities I might not have visited otherwise, and some have come and visited Ireland. No soaps or “reality” tv shite in our home – gamers for life!
You should try and get her into gaming. I found the Lego games as a great introduction to gaming for the girlfriend.
Tv is terrible totally agree with you
Well don’t play fifa if ur lookin to reduce stress levels u will jus end up most of the time with a bill for a smashed controller and they ain’t cheap nowadays 50/60 a pop for the new gen consoles…
I so know what you mean.
What’s a PIP?
” As part of my final year project, I was given the chance to develop a prototype app for the PIP, a biosensor which helps manage stress. “
What fantastic projects are you working on in your spare time Enda?
It be adult’s buying them as there over 18. Buying them for there children in most cases. It’s not real life.
So the link I previously posted staying the average gamer is 31 you disagree with? You have any facts to back that up?
Enda? I’m nothing like Enda. I’m working class and I work for cash in hand and collect the dole
Anto is clearly a troll account, that comment coupled with profile pic proves it. Don’t feed the troll
Ian the majority buying those games. Even the 18 and over 1s are children. Foghorn, anto is short for Tony thanks. And Hugh, your girlfriend is write
Okay show me statistics proving that the majority buying them are children?
Ian, I don’t understand what you’re getting at here? So because a lot of grown men like playing childish games that makes it somehow ok?
Games specifically designed for adults that are over 18 are childish?
I was a manager in Gamestop few years ago, the average age of game purchaser is late 30s, you’re talking hole anto
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