About Treadsylvania
Treadsylvania is a fun, engaging Web-based interactive game, designed to help learners ages 8-18 understand how to ride All Terrain Vehicles (ATVs) safely. Treadsylvania isn’t your traditional ATV training program, but instead, it is a fun, visually appealing adventure game that can be played in short bouts (less than an hour).
This game helps youth understand:
- Why helmets and safety gear are essential when riding
- Why you can only have one rider on an ATV
- How being “rider active” (using your balance and position to steer and control your ATV) works
- Why ATVs shouldn’t be ridden on asphalt or roadways
- What kinds of trail you can ride on and which you should avoid
Our Goal: To create an educational intervention that doesn’t FEEL like a traditional ATV training program. We wanted to create a game that feels like an adventure game and appeals to a wide range of players, particularly those players who may not think they are likely to ever ride an ATV, but may do so anyway. Even more importantly, the player had to really understand the reasons behind safety recommendations, so if they didn’t remember the “tips and suggestions”, they would get on an ATV and understand for themselves the safety risks.
Why this is important: Most fatalities and serious injuries with ATV riding don’t occur with kids who identify themselves as ATV riders — serious injury results when kids or families DON’T associate themselves as frequent riders. For example, they might use the ATV on vacation, or at a friend’s house, and view it as a toy, not realizing WHY the recommendations of wearing a helmet and keeping single passengers is so important.
For more information, contact:
Barbara Chamberlin, PhD
NMSU Learning Games Lab
575-646-2848
bchamber@nmsu.edu
