Personal Wellness Coach Project

 

The project was conceived by a group of 4 students at Carnegie Mellon University for the Mobile Computing Systems and Applications class in Fall 2003 taught by Professors Asim Smailagic and Dan Siewiorek.  It addresses a wearable wellness virtual coach.  The Personal Wellness Coach supports a range of activities relevant to a person's wellness and health, such as their health data collection, interpretation, feedback, and self-monitoring. Our goal was to design and implement a wearable computing platform with an array of sensors, and application software supporting the required functionalities.

 

What is the Personal Wellness Coach?

 

The Personal Wellness Coach is a wearable digital electronic device that acts like a personal trainer and takes over the functions of a ‘human’ coach. It interactively motivates, helps reach and extend fitness goals and prevents harm in a real-time environment.  The prototype utilized the BodyMedia SenseWear armband (shown below).  Special thanks to BodyMedia for their help!

 

Some of the features of the system are:

 

  • Adapts to different body shapes and size
  • Interactive real-time feedback and heart-rate monitoring
  • Warns of user overexertion
  • Automatically logs exercise data
  • Helps users reach their fitness goals

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Highlights

 

  • The team presented the prototype at the MERITS of Pittsburgh Conference in January 2004 and was awarded 1st place for the student poster contest

 

  • The team was a finalist for the international $10,000 Baby Boomer Business Plan Challenge in May 2004

 

  • The team was awarded the 2004 Enterprise Award by the Carnegie Mellon’s Donald Jones Center of Entrepreneurship

 

  • The team is currently working on an academic paper to be submitted to the IEEE Wearable Conference for Fall 2004 titled the “Evaluation and Performance of the Personal Wellness Coach”

 

$10,000 Boomer Business Challenge 

 

Future Plans

 

The team has formed The MobileFit Group.  The group has plans to continue developing the Personal Wellness Coach and forming a company to commercialize the product. 

 

 

The MobileFit Group

Revolutionizing the fitness industry through innovative mobile technology

 

 

 

Biographies

 

Ramy Asselin (rasselin@andrew.cmu.edu)

Ramy Asselin has a MS from the Information Networking at Carnegie Mellon University. He graduated from McGill University in Montreal, Canada, with a B.Eng in Computer Engineering. He has completed two internships, one at nVidia Corporation, in Santa Clara, California, and the other at Ciena Corporation, in Montreal, Canada. Ramy's future plans include researching, designing and developing embedded systems, and integrating such systems with the Internet. He enjoys playing classical piano, exercising, fine cuisine, and traveling.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Christian Kissling (christian_kissling@gmx.de)

Christian Kissling is currently a master's student in Electrical Engineering at the Technische Universität München (TUM), Munich, Germany. He graduated from the TUM with a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering in June 2003 in the field of Information/Communication Engineering and Signal Processing. Additionally he participates in the interdisciplinary TUM-scholarship-program: Center for Digital Technology and Management (CDTM). Christian worked for Sietron Electronics, Freilassing, Germany in the field of control and feedback control systems, hardware and software design and embedded systems programming.  His hobbies include classical music, sports and traveling.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Guillermo Ortiz (gortiz@andrew.cmu.edu)

Guillermo Ortiz has a MS from the Information Networking Institute at Carnegie Mellon University. He has a BS in Telecommunications and Computer Science from the Instituto Tecnologico Autonomo de Mexico and a Diploma in Project Management. He has worked in Media Streaming and Quality of Service projects for IP networks and his interests include Telecommunication Technologies, Policy and Management.  His hobbies include digital photography, multimedia, music, dancing, swimming and scuba diving.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jonathan Pui (jpui@andrew.cmu.edu)

Jonathan Pui has a MS in Electrical and Computer Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. He graduated from CMU with a BS in ECE and a minor in Business Administration in May 2002. During the next 15 months, he worked as an IT healthcare consultant at Cerner Corporation located in Kansas City, Missouri.  He enjoys higher education and would like to pursue an MBA in the near future. His hobbies include sports, camping, music, weightlifting and traveling.

 

 

 

 

 

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