Project

# Title Team Members TA Documents Sponsor
20 Home Fitness Aid
 Andrew Garcia
Hemanth Ravi Gowda
Steve Cheng
 Sowji Akshintala design_document2.pdf
design_document3.pdf
final_paper1.pdf
other1.pdf
proposal1.pdf
Group: Andrew Garcia (ajgarci6) , Hemanth Gowda (hr2) , Steve Cheng (scheng40)

**Problem and Solution Overview**

The increased time spent at home has made personal fitness and well-being more concerning than ever before. Individuals who view gyms as unsafe during the pandemic may try to shift towards working-out at home. Those who now study, work, and relax at home spend even less time outside. The typical daily movements(commuting, walks, visits) that may have provided some sort of fitness are now forgone. With the sudden change and lack of equipment, the best and easiest way to ensure a person remains in good shape is to do daily home exercises. This simple home fitness device's main purpose is to provide support for home exercises that utilize body weight.

**Features and Solution Components:**

- This device will be able to handle user input for the routines they wish to do. For example, a user can enter "Push-ups, 10 reps", "Crunches, 25 reps", "Squats, 15 reps" and the device will be able to iterate through each of the exercises until completion. A digital display and some controls will allow for user input. It will allow for adding/deleting exercises as they see fit and will be stored.

- When fatigue sets in, it becomes difficult to keep track of the reps and body posture. This device will be able to count the reps for the user accurately using an accerlerometer and/or a gyroscope. It can relay data to the user either through a speaker system(if time allows) and the digital display. A rep can be generalized as a movement, and then a movement back to the original position.

- The system will be comprised of mainly two subsystems. A wearable wristband with sensors and a communication device and a case which houses the computing, memory, and digital display. The wristband can be powered by a battery, and the case can either be powered by a battery for portability or a simple wall plug.

- A progression system can be set in place for allowing users to reach new heights. If they are able to complete their exercise, the system can automatically increment reps by one. If they are unable to finish their exercise and just stop for a set time, the difficulty won't increase and it will move onto the next exercise. A way to display their progress through graphs is probable.

**Notes:**

There exists a problem with exercise that alternates between left/right. For example, alternating bicep curls might pose a problem as there is only one wearable. A simple solution is to allow the user the option to to increment by two instead of one. So when a full alternation is done between both arms, it will count accurately as two reps instead of one.

Another thing to note is the compactness of this device. The first prototype may be larger than desired to account for time/resources.

**Criterion for Success**

This project will be regarded as successful when the two subsystems are complete and are able to communicate with each other. The wristband will be able to give useful data from the sensors to the second subsystem which houses the processor and memory. The second subsystem will be able to:

- obtain user inputs
- display routines, rep count, and possibly progression to the user
- have a progression system implemented

**Contingency Plan**
In the case that we move online, we hope to have the structure housing the electronics already built. We will try to push the soldering and housing design to have something built before anything happens. The hardware we plan to use can still be bought online. We will not be moving physical locations if we go online and can still proceed to work on the project at home. Hopefully we can still access the parts we need at that point and make a demo video.

Prosthetic Control Board

Caleb Albers, Daniel Lee

Prosthetic Control Board

Featured Project

Psyonic is a local start-up that has been working on a prosthetic arm with an impressive set of features as well as being affordable. The current iteration of the main hand board is functional, but has limitations in computational power as well as scalability. In lieu of this, Psyonic wishes to switch to a production-ready chip that is an improvement on the current micro controller by utilizing a more modern architecture. During this change a few new features would be added that would improve safety, allow for easier debugging, and fix some issues present in the current implementation. The board is also slated to communicate with several other boards found in the hand. Additionally we are looking at the possibility of improving the longevity of the product with methods such as conformal coating and potting.

Core Functionality:

Replace microcontroller, change connectors, and code software to send control signals to the motor drivers

Tier 1 functions:

Add additional communication interfaces (I2C), and add temperature sensor.

Tier 2 functions:

Setup framework for communication between other boards, and improve board longevity.

Overview of proposed changes by affected area:

Microcontroller/Architecture Change:

Teensy -> Production-ready chip (most likely ARM based, i.e. STM32 family of processors)

Board:

support new microcontroller, adding additional communication interfaces (I2C), change to more robust connector. (will need to design pcb for both main control as well as finger sensors)

Sensor:

Addition of a temperature sensor to provide temperature feedback to the microcontroller.

Software:

change from Arduino IDE to new toolchain. (ARM has various base libraries such as mbed and can be configured for use with eclipse to act as IDE) Lay out framework to allow communication from other boards found in other parts of the arm.