Replay
Project-
In response to the prompt: "Identify a problem linked to people not being active enough", we identified a lack of motivation to exercise in ages 6-18. Our team decided on this problem because ages 6-18 exercised the least out of everyone in our research. We also sent out a survey to kids from two schools to get a wide variety of age ranges and responses. We got a total of 164 responses and used the results of this survey to develop our solution. This is an important problem because most people do not exercise as much as they should. When you don't exercise your muscles weaken, you become at risk for heart disease, obesity, high blood pressure, high blood cholesterol, and type 2 diabetes. Lack of exercise can also lead to having less energy and not being as cheerful because exercise increases endorphins, dopamine, and adrenaline. These are all brain chemicals associated with feeling happy, confident, capable, and having less anxiety and stress.
We created Howl Bout It Outdoor Workout League. H.O.W.L is an outdoor fitness scavenger hunt located in multiple parks in the Greater Cincinnati Area. This solves our chosen problem by motivating kids ages 6-18 to exercise using the spirit of friendly competition with a leader board as well as extra credit in Physical Education class. Another way we encourage people to have fun while exercising is with motivating messages. These messages would be through an app or website. Currently, we have a working website that allows you to type codes into a form on the website to earn points. In the future, we would like to also use an app. Points are earned by walking, running, or biking to different locations around the Greater Cincinnati Area. There you will find a code that you can type into your device. In the future, we would like to use QR codes to award points. We would also like to improve our signs to make them more permanent as well as safer from vandalism and weather. Different destinations would be worth more or fewer points based on how far you have to run, walk, or bike. At each location, people do short cardio exercises such as jumping jacks, push-ups, or sit-ups to get their heart rates up.
We got inspiration from current solutions like "Fitbit" and "Geocaching" to incorporate scavenger hunts and the spirit of competition. We also got inspiration from "Zombie, Run!" a game created by Guerrilla Bandit to help get kids who enjoy video games to play them and exercise at the same time. We tested HOWL by inviting 15 people to participate in an early adopters testing program and we got 13 responses. 92% of the testing volunteers said that they would do it again and 84% said it made them more active. We also received feedback from some early adopters that we worked to incorporate into our solution such as adding more locations and having the participants do a small exercise at each location.
We also developed our solution by meeting with Dr. Avani Modi who is an expert in medication adherence. Dr. Modi created an app to help kids remember to take their medicine. She talked with us about how to send good motivating messages. She told us that the hardest part is to get kids to start using the app. Another expert who helped us develop our solution is our P.E. Teacher who gave us great advice and is willing to give extra credit points to any of his students who compete in this challenge. We also met with Becky Osinski, Lindsey Combs, and Julie Robinson from Great Parks of Hamilton County, who are graphic designers and nature interpreters. They said they thought our solution would work and it would motivate their kids. They told us that the spirit of competition is a good enough reward and that we should have a leaderboard for our website and app. They would like to implement our solution in their parks, and we had the approval to initiate our solution throughout their parks through June 1.
Howl Workout Website: https://howl-bout-it-375758.webnode.page/
Robot-
At the beginning of the season we spent some time researching and creating different examples of Gear contraptions. We found a really cool pea shooter online which we wanted to see if we could build it, and we used it as a learning experience. Once we decided we needed a forklift, it took us many attempts, this slide shows the evolution of our forklift. We repeatedly tested our forklifts to "identify areas for improvement" and used this to make our forklift better. The one on the left is the first attempt we created. The one in the middle is the second attempt. The one on the right is the finale and current forklift we created, we used iteration by making a forklift, testing it and then changing it to work better. We've spent a lot of time improving our code to use gyro and light sensors consistently.
Our robot runs for almost 2 minutes without assistance and completes 8 missions. Our code and sensors allow our robot to know where it is before and after after every mission. So even if one mission doesn't work perfectly on a run, the robot realigns for the next mission. This is our biggest run that does seven missions. We wrote our master in a way that allows us to make in game decisions todo red or blue boccia. We can cooperate with the other team and do red or blue boccia - we flipped a color gear coin since we're competing remotely. We used ITERATION by testing missions and changing attachments and code based on how it went. Our robot is generally consistent. When we develop a mission and think it's ready to use, we test it repeatedly and expect it to work at least 4 out of 5 times or we keep working on it.
Achievements -
Dublin Robotics Boosters Remote Qualifier - Robot Performance Award and Champion's Award
State - Champion's Award Finalist
