Team: Almaha Almalki, Mikayla Murphy, Ashley Wang, and Jingxian Zhang
The dataset we focused on was the US Fuel Economy Measurements. We noticed that fuel economy is not only related to vehicle classes but also to drivers’ driving habits, and found a list of tips and trips to improve fuel efficiency. We hope to tell a story about how driving habits and advanced vehicle technologies can improve fuel efficiency. Our target audience are car owners who want to save money in fuel efficiency. Our goal is to present players some knowledge about fuel efficiency (especially for vehicles they own) and how good their driving habits are.
The game will be on a racing arcade machine where players can have physical driving simulation. The screen is also a touch screen for all the digital interaction (Figure 1). In the game, players will be asked to finish a task, e.g. going to grocery store, in a route they select (city, highway, interstate). To win the game, they should try to reach higher fuel efficiency. Players start the game by choosing a vehicle and choosing a route (Figure 2). Then, they will answer some questions for the vehicle set up, such as whether to enable start-stop system and whether to take the canoe off the vehicle.
When en route, the game will monitor players’ driving habits such as whether they exceed speed limit and whether there are hard acceleration and braking. At the end of the game, players will receive their race result and their personal driving profile, which they can print out or share on social media (Figure 3). In the handout, players are shown how their driving habits and vehicle setup affects the money they can save on fuel and how to improve their fuel efficiency. By playing the game, players can actually relate their driving habits to the accurate amount of money they can save, and the driving personality in the profile can be a fun way for them to know how they drive and what to improve.
