Week 2 - phidgets & project ideas

As an exchange student, meeting new people is always fun. The same holds for discovering novel technologies. Phidgets, to me, where certainly new and appear to be a very easy and convenient way to quickly build prototypes of any kind of interaction device. Although my programming skills are limited, I still hope that throughout this project they will at least increase a little bit. This is also why I chose to join my other group members who are obviously more skilled at this then I am.

The following weeks we will be working on our project in which we will try to create a device that motivates people to be more active and thus be more healthy. We hope to achieve this by designing a mobile device that measures a subjects physical activity. Feedback on the amount of activity shall be given in the first prototype by visual means while in the final product this might be achieved through a more sophisticated hardware device. The goal is that the feedback to your activity is viewable by anyone, thus inducing peer pressure that hopefully leads to even more physical activity and in the end to a more healthier lifestyle.