E. Final Design - sikadm/387FinalProject GitHub Wiki

The final design of the heart rate monitor and app consisted of a leaderboard, entry forms, graphs and pulse sensor interpretation as the main deliverables. Although they did not come together in the way I had originally intended, they do serve their purposes. While apple watches can do the same thing and some fitness centers have this kind of leaderboard, few people are willing to spend this kind of money or "friend" random strangers for the purpose of competition in the gym. In a more mobile form, this would be a great addition to a gym's rental program. When members swipe in, they could also register a band and track their status throughout the gym on monitors. With the components used in this prototype, the cost came to only $40. With different microprocessors and the cheapness of mass production, this kind of band would be much cheaper than any apple watch or fitbit.

Videos of the working capabilities can be seen here.

Reflection

Although the project did not come together in the way I had hoped, I learned a lot about Arduino's serial monitor, python and its modules. This was a perfect example of how the spiral method can be used to make sure the product still works in the end. While I had hoped to integrate all the components together, it could be argued that it is better off in separate forms. As I discussed in the purpose of this project, there are two main groups of users: the gym employees and the gym visitors. The gym employees would really only need to see the graphs to ensure no one is performing too strenuous of a workout, while the people working out would be more interested in how they compare to others, and therefore only need the entry form and leaderboard. If I were to continue this project in the future, I would probably still focus more on integrating all the functions of the code but another adaptation I had considered was the use of the muscle sensor which could make the app more interesting.