Just as children’s physical health can be improved through exercise, blending cognitive and physical challenges can improve the health of their brains. TRAQ 3D’s “learning through movement” games are stimulating and beneficial for a healthy mind and body, no matter how old you are.

Shh . . . Don’t Tell the Kids They’re Learning

In school-based programs and other children’s health and fitness settings, TRAZER tests, trains and motivates kids with exciting games and virtual sports drills. Leading physical educators and therapists have stated that TRAZER is a powerful tool in the battle against inactivity, obesity, and Type II diabetes in children. It can also be used to enhance learning and cognitive skills for all children, even those with learning disabilities.

Computer-Based Learning

Educational computer programs are widely employed for teaching academic skills to children. Because these programs are interactive and engage children’s visual and auditory senses, learning is often more enjoyable and productive than it would be from a book. Real-time positive feedback is essential for optimal learning, and it is a major benefit of computer learning games. In sharp contrast to the discouragement many children experience with challenging school work, most children seem to relish the greater challenges imposed on them by video games.

Recent research indicates that video games can be powerful educational tools that develop valuable graphical and motor skills relevant in our digital world. Regular video game players develop the ability to process large amounts of visual information along with fine motor and cognitive skills.

Blending Movement and Learning is Well Supported

“The take-home message is simple: Active learning has significant advantages over sedentary learning. The advantages include learning in a way that is longer lasting, better remembered, more fun, age appropriate, and intelligence independent and that reaches more kinds of learners. Active learning is not just for physical education teachers; that notion is outdated. Active learning is for educators who understand the science behind the learning. Let’s support a stronger blend of sitting and moving.” - Eric Jensen, Teaching with the Brain in Mind

TRAQ 3D Creates a Whole New Learning Modality

TRAZER offers learning games that challenge both your child’s mind and body to create totally absorbing educational experiences. The result is that learning becomes more dynamic, stimulating, and memorable while also enhancing fitness, health, and physical performance.

How does TRAZER actually teach? It tracks your child’s interactive body movement and enables her to manipulate virtual objects and symbols representing learning concepts located within TRAZER’s virtual game environment.

TRAZER educational games involve not only your child’s eyes and ears, but also his entire being so that his mind works in concert with his body to vividly recall what his body actually experienced.

Unlike educational computer games that provide nothing more than finger exercise, with TRAZER, your child controls the action with his actual body movement. TRAZER programs do not confine him to a chair, but encourage unconstrained free movement that further enhances the learning experience for him with “E-Cubed” games. TRAZER captures the benefits of video game play for unprecedented gains in compliance, motivation and outcomes.

“E-Cubed” Programs – Play Harder, Get Smarter!

E-Cubed (Exercise & Education through Entertainment) learning games synergistically mix physical challenges and academic material to give new meaning to the term “physical education.”

E-Cubed programs are essentially part gym class and part computer learning lab. They challenge both mind and body to create totally absorbing educational experiences, making learning more dynamic, stimulating and memorable. For example, your child could participate in daily periods of TRAZER play to assist in mastering early math and language skills while she improves her health risk factors as well as her physical performance.

Raise the Heart Rate, Raise the IQ

E-Cubed programs deliver visual, auditory and kinesthetic learning challenges. A valuable byproduct of your child’s physical navigation of the virtual learning environment is an elevated metabolic rate which further heightens her learning state.

E-Cubed programs have your child interact with, and become immersed in, virtual learning environments through purposeful movement (movement that elevates her metabolic rate/heart rate) to create a powerful synergistic learning effect.

A growing body of research indicates that aerobic exercise enhances our cognitive function. It seems that motivation and receptivity to learning are further enhanced by physical activity that elevates the metabolism during primary learning tasks. We believe that learning is optimized when the metabolic increase is the direct result of your child’s physical actions in response to the virtual, interactive learning task.

Activities that engage your child in interactive physical tasks requiring strategic thought will improve compliance and motivation, and a fully engaged child does better. By contrast, simultaneously riding a stationary bicycle while playing a video game will increase the student’s metabolic rate; however, because the act of riding is inconsequential to the learning task, it may actually be distracting to the learning experience.

TRAZER educational learning tasks will be progressive. Initially, your child will be presented with problems that are easily solved through movement. Repetitively solving these challenges will cause your child to move more frequently and with confidence, which will lead to an elevated metabolic rate. Over time, this progression becomes self-perpetuating.

Children with Special Needs have a Friend In TRAZER

One of the company’s customers has written, “We have found that the TRAZER has helped children . . . with sensory deprivation issues, developmental delays, and attention deficit disorders . . . increase their visual and spatial awareness, resulting in more coordinated movement and improved reaction times. Additionally, we have seen it motivate autistic children who otherwise tend to resist organized activities and exercise.” - Marc Sickel, Fitness for Health in Rockville, MD

As one of the side effects of autism is a very sedentary lifestyle, these children not only face weight problems, but they also fail to develop the basic coordination skills that they need for healthy play as they age. After a study using TRAZER with a group of autistic children, we were told that the test subjects’ parents were “thrilled” that as a result of TRAZER, their children were learning to move more confidently and adeptly while burning calories. One parent told us that while her eleven-year-old son did not refer to his siblings by name, he knew “Physbot,” TRAZER’s avatar.

“David was eight years old when he was referred to our Sports Advantage Clinic by his pediatrician. He had been slow to develop his movement skills and was often the last to be picked for team activities. He’d become increasingly withdrawn and inactive, was having difficulty reading, displayed symptoms of ADD, and was quickly becoming obese. He desperately needed exercise. We started him on a TRAZER regimen right away. The TRAZER interface was very simple for David; he began with Level 2 Trap Attack and worked up to Level 6. We tested his movement skills after the second session in order to baseline him. We tested him every 6 weeks thereafter for the 12 months he was with us, each test indicating a steady improvement. Dave quickly lost 20 pounds of excess weight, and his focus and coordination improved to the point that by the time he left us, he was playing soccer, basketball, and baseball. His teacher reported that his ADD issues were much improved, and she actually sent a copy of his reading comprehension test to the therapist to show how he’d improved. Perhaps most important, David had become a confident and more pleasant child who was able to willingly participate in activities and make friends.”

- Cara Bonney, director, Miami Valley Hospital Sports Advantage Program, Dayton, OH

“… one of our clients is a young girl with a rare form of dwarfism and a permanent tracheotomy. She is afraid to do anything that causes her to breathe heavily because of the tracheotomy. However, she is fascinated by TRAZER, and her desire to play is helping her to overcome her fear. The goal is to improve her cardiovascular endurance and lung capacity to the point that the trach can be removed.”

- Marc Sickel, Fitness for Health, Rockville, MD

For health, physical fitness, and educational improvements, TRAZER and TRAQ 3D are the best solution for your children, no matter their abilities or disabilities.