The Bella Project is more than a game jam. It's an ongoing effort to make the lives of kids with cystic fibrosis easier. After the game jam is complete, we hope to have a few games that Bella can begin playing. The next phase is to make this technology available to all kids with CF!
In the summer of 2013, Sue and her husband Cy went on a vacation with close friends whose daughter, Bella, has Cystic Fibrosis. Sue had done Bella’s therapy many times already, since their daughter Vivian and Bella are best friends and often have sleepovers -- but never had she experienced the monotony of doing it night and day for a week (let alone for life).
It made her think. With today’s technology, surely one could develop a way to make the therapy more fun? Maybe by making a user interface that would work like a video game on a smart phone or tablet... A game that's controlled by breath! At the same time, it could monitor the patient and give both caregivers and patients more independence.
Sue and Cy started as soon as they returned from that vacation.
It started with a visit to the CF Physiotherapists at Children’s Hospital, who were very enthusiastic about the idea. Sue and Cy also made call to their good friend Dan Mozel, an Electrical Engineer, who agreed to develop the pressure instrumentation and wireless transmitter technology for the project.
While Dan worked on the hardware, Sue and Cy began work on a game framework and cloud services at Spot Solutions. Months later, Spot had the technology architecture and proof of concept ready.
They had the tools ready -- but no game developers.
While at a conference, Cy met a fellow who put him in touch with Anna Prein, Game Jam Organizer extraordinaire. A couple coffee meetings later, The Bella Project was born!