Three graduates from Biomedical Engineering beat 69 other entries to clinch the grand prize of $20,000 in Huawei’s Tech4City competition, which was held at the Sands Expo and Convention Centre on 11 October 2024. The project, PrimePlay, comprises a series of arcade-like fitness games to encourage seniors to stay active.
This competition inspired more than 250 innovative ideas from over 1,000 participants, showcasing the potential of youths aged 18 to 35 to drive change through technology. Now in its third year, the competition challenges participants to use artificial intelligence (AI) to tackle issues of sustainability and inclusivity.
The team, Golden Gamers—comprising Jonathon Leong, Fatin Sharafana, and Denise Caluza—was inspired to integrate gamification into senior exercise activities after speaking with seniors who expressed little interest in traditional exercise equipment at active ageing centres and fitness corners. In response, the team developed Project PrimePlay, which offers AI-driven personalised fitness programmes tailored to individual needs.
First, the seniors will complete a screening and health questionnaire on the PrimePlay mobile app—which includes health history, functional limitations, and fitness goals—seniors receive an AI-generated personalised fitness plan. This plan breaks down their goals into actionable steps with tailored game recommendations and suggested frequencies.
Next, seniors can play with the different games offered by the team. For example, they may be encouraged to improve their lower-body fitness by playing "Pedal-IT" at least twice daily. In this competition, three games targeting different aspects of the seniors’ health, such as body agility, grip strength and lower-body fitness, were featured.
Happy Feet
The senior-friendly dance mat encourages movement to the rhythm of specially selected songs. Its non-slip surface and cushioned foam provide both safety and comfort. The game is designed with progressive levels and adapts to seniors of varying physical abilities, ensuring an enjoyable experience.
Grow Your Grip
Like the arcade rhythm games, this version trains reflexes by having seniors react to a beat. However, instead of tapping, seniors use a calibrated hand gripper to squeeze in sync with the beat of a song, aiming to complete the track and accumulate as many points as possible. This game helps improve seniors’ grip strength and enhances their hand-eye coordination, all while keeping the experience fun and engaging.
Pedal-IT
The portable and compact pedal machine is designed to improve lower-body fitness through interactive therapy. It benefits patients recovering from knee surgery, promoting joint movement to aid healing. Seniors can connect the machine to a screen and enjoy virtual cycling through familiar scenes like Chinatown, making the experience both therapeutic and visually stimulating.
As they play, the PrimePlay mobile app continuously tracks their health data. Using an adaptive algorithm, the programme is adjusted to match the seniors' progress, ensuring a personalised and evolving fitness experience. These features are supported by Huawei’s ModelArts to build and train an AI model and Huawei’s Relational Database Service (RDS) MySQL to store the user and training data.
Jonathon Leong, one of the team members of Prime Play, envisions deploying PrimePlay to more active ageing centres. “Winning this competition isn’t the finish line - it’s just the beginning. Now, the real work begins to make a lasting impact on health and well-being of seniors in Singapore. With more social attention, we hope more seniors will be interested.” In the future, seniors may receive personalised fitness plans and engage with these games, making exercise effective and enjoyable.
Discover more about Biomedical Engineering community-focused innovations here: https://nusbme.wixsite.com/bgood
