Project

# Title Team Members TA Documents Sponsor
40 Precision Dumbbell Assistant
Cole Trautman
Ellie Beck
Ronit Kumar
Douglas Yu design_document1.pdf
final_paper1.pdf
presentation1.pptx
proposal1.pdf
proposal2.pdf
video
# Team Members
- Cole Trautman (colept2)
- Ronit Kumar (ronitk2)
- Ellie Beck (elliana2)

# Problem

Many gym goers struggle to maintain proper form during their workouts with dumbbells, which is why they rely heavily on exercise machines. However, if you are trying to construct an at-home gym, it is not feasible to order too many machines. Hence, there should be a way to help people maintain proper form even when they just use dumbbells. To start simple, we will first make our design compatible with bicep curls. We will add more exercises depending on time constraints.

# Solution

Our design will use 3 6-axis (accelerometer and gyroscope) IMU sensors on each arm to calculate the position of each arm and ensure that the user is performing the exercise correctly. There will be two small sensor boards located on the lower arm and shoulder, and a larger main board with another sensor on the upper arm. There will also be a battery that will be attached to the user, most likely on the upper arm or back. There will be a total of 5 subsystems in this design: sensing, processing, wireless communication, feedback, and power

# Solution Components

## Sensing

The sensing subsystem consists of 6 total LSM6DSMTR 6-axis IMUs, 3 for each arm. Each IMU will be on its own board, and connected to the processor via SPI. As mentioned before, the sensors will be located on the lower and upper arm, as well as the shoulder, which should allow us to accurately track the entire arm and dumbbell. The two small sensor boards will be connected to the main board with some kind of wire harness for power and SPI.

## Processing

The processing subsystem contains the two ESP32 processors. These were chosen because of their wireless capabilities, which we will get to later. Each processor will initialize its three sensors and then read in the sensor data and make sure that they are within the threshold necessary to perform the exercise correctly.

## Wireless Communication

This subsystem will handle the communication between the two ESP32 processors, as well as to the user’s phone so that they can see feedback via the feedback subsystem. We plan to use BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy), but if we run into problems with that ESP32 also should support WiFi.

## Feedback

This subsystem will handle the audible and visual feedback needed to let the user know whether they are doing the exercise correctly or not. We plan to have a buzzer on each main board to provide audible feedback, and a phone app to provide visual feedback. We want to at least list data regarding the number of curls, speed of workout, and angle of movements. Based on the data, it will compile a report that describes the accuracy of the user's form. If we can make some sort of graphic that displays where the movement was incorrect that would be incredibly helpful, although implementing this feature seems like it would be very time consuming.

## Power

Power will come from two 3.7V Li-ion battery packs, one on each arm. We plan to have these near the main board that attaches to the upper arm, but if it is too heavy it could be located elsewhere. This subsystem will also contain the circuitry needed to convert the voltage down to the voltage needed by the processor and sensors if needed.

# Criterion For Success

Our device needs to be accurate in motion and form analysis. To test this goal, we should be able to move our arms at the same distance and angle that we determine from our research of an online fitness expert and the feedback should be positive. We will also need to test each of our sensors individually to ensure that the accelerometer and gyroscope are providing accurate data based on our movements.

We also need to provide real time feedback to the user for improper form. To test this goal, we will purposely use improper form and the buzzer should sound to alert the user.

Our device should also allow the user to do proper movements. When we connect the sensors and ESP32 microcontroller, we will have to make sure that we don’t have overly rigid connections that prevent the user from moving their body parts naturally.

Pocket Pedal - A Bluetooth Controlled Effects Box

Kaan Erel, Alexander Van Dorn, Jacob Waterman

Pocket Pedal - A Bluetooth Controlled Effects Box

Featured Project

Our idea is to make an inexpensive alternative to traditional pedal powered guitar effects boxes. Essentially, we hope to implement a single aftermarket effects box that can be remote controlled via a mobile app. This low-power, Bluetooth connected application can control the box to change effects on the go. The hardware within the effects box will be able to alter the guitar's signals to create different sounds like echoing, looping, and distortion effects (and possibly more). These effects will be implemented using analog circuits that we will design and construct to be controlled by an app on your phone.

This project eliminates the expensive buy-in for a guitarist hoping to sound like any number of famous musicians with multiple effects pedals. On top of this, it also aims to get rid of the clutter that comes with the numerous pedals and boxes connected to an amplifier. Many pedals today don't even have a visual interface to select effects through some sort of menu. The app will also provide a much more handy and portable visual representation of the possible effects all from the phone in your pocket!

Team:

Jacob Waterman jwaterm2

Kaan Erel erel2

Alex Van Dorn vandorn2