Students who are part of the Edge Academy project have created software to support the execution of exercises
Five students from the Federal University of Alagoas (Ufal), from the Engineering and Computer Science courses and who are part of the Edge Academy project, have developed a prototype of an application for mobile devices that works as an assistant for executing physical exercises, the Trainer. The idea came about after observing gyms with many students and few instructors to meet the demand.
“The solution we found was to create an application using computer vision to help users, whether they are at the gym or training at home, so that they can perform the exercises correctly,” explains one of the project’s developers, João Pedro Magalhães, a 6th-semester Computer Science student at Ufal. In addition to him, the solution was designed by Matheus Oliveira, also a Computer Science undergraduate, and Renalvo Júnior, Vinicius Ramos and Gabriel Germano, three Computer Engineering students.
The application creation process went through several phases – from ideation to prototyping, from choosing the framework and the decision to develop multiplatform software. Trainer uses a Google library for computer vision and, to adapt it to reality, several angles were tested to identify the exercise and the correct way to perform it. “For example, when performing a biceps exercise, it is not correct to open your arm too wide and lift it. The arm needs to be more closed, so we calculate these parameters based on the angles of the arm, elbow, and other parts, to see what the correct way to do it is,” says João.
According to the students, there is also the possibility of expanding the scope of the project, with the inclusion of other types of exercises. “It is possible to increase the movements already cataloged, as well as increase the number of exercises. For now, we are still in the prototype phase, just for sampling, but we already have ideas for variations that can be included in this software,” he concludes.
Edge Academy – Made possible with resources from Softex, Edge Academy is the talent training project of the Edge Innovation Center, aimed at students of the Computer Science Institute of the Federal University of Alagoas (Ufal), which aims to promote academic excellence, develop skills and competencies, and prepare students for professional life from the beginning of their undergraduate studies.
