StepUp

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Inspiration

We thought about the problems facing our community and the world, and realized that declining physical and mental health due to a lack of exercise was one of the biggest issues facing people today. We decided to build a way to make exercise interesting.

What it does

The StepUp app for Android encourages people to get moving by including daily and long-term goals for step counts while also having game elements to keep things interesting. With motivation from the at-times moody koala coach Walkabout, users walk to collect Koala Coins to purchase fun prizes.

How we built it

The StepUp app is built using Android Studio in Java/Kotlin. At the start, we defined the goals and features that we wanted to achieve. After having our features set up, we divided the work out and worked off a GitHub repository to make sure that everyone's code worked with others. Some core features were tackled beforehand such as getting the steps from the built-in pedometer, which shaped our tech stack decisions. At the end, we all merge our project into the final GitHub branch and built the IT.

Challenges we ran into

Many of the challenges we faced related to our complete unfamiliarity with mobile app development, as this was our entire team's first time attempting something like this. We pivoted between several tech stacks before settling on the Java/Kotlin Android solution we came up with, with the requirement that we collect sensor data being the major constraint on what we were able to use.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We were able to overcome the challenges we faced to build our first-ever Android app within two days, which we are very proud of; the app has a high level of polish and is fun to use.

What we learned

We learned a lot about Android app development, including how to get permissions, read from sensors, save complex data, and general app development techniques. As this was a new realm for us, we had much to learn and still do.

What's next for StepUp

StepUp could be expanded in the future with more prizes to purchase with Koala Coins, smartwatch integration, and other features to make it more ergonomic and enjoyable.