App Screenshots

Nomad

Track

Health & Wellness

Inspiration

As CS majors, we sit a lot. Doing homework, sitting. Entertainment, sitting. Commuting to campus, sitting in car. In class, sitting. Eating, sitting. Our campus is small, so there isn't much built-in walking. This is bad for our health and makes it surprisingly hard to reach 10,000 steps a day.

Reaching 10,000 daily steps is a widely recommended target to increase physical activity. It's associated with reduced risk of cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, and certain cancers, while supporting weight management, lowering blood pressure, improving mental health, and increasing longevity.

What it does

Nomad is a mobile app that turns your daily steps into a mission. It reads your phone's pedometer to track steps in real time, then uses your location and height to recommend nearby places — landmarks, campus buildings, parks, cafes — showing exactly how many steps you'd earn by walking there, how far it is, and how long it'll take.

Key features:

Live step counter with a progress bar and walking stick figure that moves as you get closer to your goal
Faded map background centered on your location (NRC-inspired)
Collapsible weekly activity chart pulled from Apple HealthKit
Nearby place cards showing distance, walking time, and steps gained — tap to open walking directions in Apple Maps or Google Maps
Custom onboarding that collects your name, height (for stride calculation), and step goal, then walks you through Health and Location permissions before any system dialogs appear
Automatic dark mode that follows your device theme, including the map

How steps are calculated

We estimate steps to a destination using the user's height:

stride_length = 0.415 × height_in_inches
steps = (distance_miles × 5280 × 12) / stride_length

How we built it

Frontend:

React Native with TypeScript, Expo managed workflow
Expo Router for file-based navigation
expo-sensors (Pedometer) for HealthKit step data
expo-location for user positioning
react-native-maps for the background map

Backend:

Flask (Python) server
Google Places API (Nearby Search) to find landmarks, campus buildings, parks, gyms, restaurants, and more
Google Distance Matrix API to get walking distances and durations
Minimum distance filter (0.15 mi) so you don't get results for the building you're already in
Results sorted by distance, capped at 20

AI Tools:

Claude Opus 4.6 (claude.ai)
Cursor

Storage:

No database, user preferences (name, height, goal) stored on-device with AsyncStorage

What's next for Nomad

Multi-stop routes: "Walk to the park, then the library, then back home" to hit your goal with a loop
Longer path options: the Distance Matrix API returns the shortest path, but sometimes a longer scenic route earns more steps
Apple Health sync: import name and height from HealthKit so users who grow (or update their profile) stay in sync automatically
User-defined places: let users pin their own favorite destinations
Gamification: streaks, badges, celebrations when you hit your goal, weekly challenges