Inspiration
Surveys show that 56% of women have experienced sexual harassment at the gym, and thus 25.65% of women actively avoid the public gym because of this. With metrics this high, it's clear that women and other gender minorities may be afraid to access fitness resources that can be crucial. For strength training this is especially important; something seemingly as simple as lifting form can cause long-term harm and reduce the benefits of exercising in the first place.
This is where Empower Her training comes in. With the power of Computer Vision, strength train safely and without fear, and track your progress as you learn to lift with proper form.
What it does
Our application uses MediaPipe and OpenCV to track your body and advise you on how to adjust your form to perform lifts and other exercises safely and in the comfort of your home with minimal to no equipment. It's perfect for fitness beginners and those who may shy away from the gym. Our application helps you get the perfect form on bicep curls, lateral raises, and shoulder presses!
How we built it
We created a Flask Application to stand up our front end and styled our pages with html, CSS, and tailwind CSS. Our Computer Vision was driven by the OpenCV, MediaPipe, and NumPy libraries.
Challenges we ran into
Since not all of us were familiar with the tech-stack that came with the project it was initially difficult to set up and use the libraries necessary for the the computer vision and the UI. The logic behind the pose tracking was not the easiest to develop, we ran into issues with the camera not being mirrored, and trying to prevent false positives from being counted.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
We are proud of our front-end design; none of us considered ourselves designers, but we are quite happy with how cute our application turned out. We got the opportunity to use so many technologies we haven't had exposure to and were able to strengthen our skills across of tech stack.
What we learned
Many team members gained hands-on experience with new technologies such as OpenCV, MediaPipe, and Flask. We learned how to navigate unfamiliar libraries and integrate them into our project, broadening our technical skill set in the process.
Developing the logic behind pose tracking and form adjustment presented various challenges that required creative problem-solving. We encountered issues such as camera mirroring and false positive detection, prompting us to brainstorm solutions and troubleshoot effectively.
Designing the application's front end taught us the importance of user-centric design principles. We learned to prioritize user experience, create intuitive interfaces, and iterate based on user feedback to ensure seamless interaction.
What's Next for Empower Her
We want to greatly expand our exercise database. Without a range of fitness equipment currently at our disposal, it's hard to simulate and test for exercises beyond just the basics. With more time, we will incorporate the tracking and form adjustment feedback for a wider range of movements, not limited to strength training.
A possible future is to integrate Empower Her with wearable fitness devices such as smartwatches and fitness trackers to sync workout data seamlessly. This allows for more accurate tracking of metrics like heart rate, calorie burn, and step count.
Since this app is geared towards women or anyone else who might feel unsafe in a traditional gym setting alone, we thought one great feature could be connecting individuals with gym buddies so they can feel a bit safer.
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