Inspiration
Now that we are all at home, there is less group motivation as many people are unable to go to gyms or work out with others. There are many ways to motivate people. The two main categories are positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement. We decided that slight pain was negative reinforcement and would work. A great way to do this is with electrical shock.
What it does
This device detects when you stop moving. When it detects you are no longer moving (no longer staying active) it sends a signal to the Arduino over serial to close a relay that supplies power to a dc-dc step up transformer. The outputs of the step up transformer are connected to the user, therefore shocking the user.
How we built it
The first step was to make the computer vision code that detects user activity. Then came the hardware which involved prototyping on breadboards then soldering it onto a prototype board. After this scripts to link the two were made. Finally, features such as screaming turning it off were added.
Challenges we ran into
Power delivery was very difficult since we want the device to be as lightweight as possible. Using USB cables ended up working as they could be long and lightweight. Motion detection was not perfect and relies on very good lighting. Because of this, testing was hard in some scenarios.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
We are proud of how accurate it is and how fast it is. We also are proud of the fact we finished the main bit early enough to add features like the scream detection.
What we learned
We learned how to detect human movement with computer vision in python, how to monitor a live audio feed, and how to communicate via serial with an Arduino.
What's next for Encouraging Workout Device
Some future improvements would be a 3d printed case, built in rechargeable batteries, more polish on the software, and detection for different exercises.
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