I-Corps

Cyber cyclists count calories with adaptive virtual workouts

Nathan Kahl — Fri, 15 Sep 2023 13:41:21 +0000

Cyber cyclists count calories with adaptive virtual workouts Nathan Kahl Fri, 09/15/2023 - 09:41

For many, exercise is a laborious chore, better put off until tomorrow. But Craig Yu, an associate professor in the ��AV Department of Computer Science, is hoping a combination of virtual reality and gamification will make exercise an appealing—and even fun—endeavor.

Virtual reality (VR) is becoming ubiquitous, popping up in everything from serious activities like military applications and surgery support to recreational activities like theme park attractions and at-home video games.

Yu and colleagues are seeking to use the immersive VR world to help make exercise appealing. And more than that, they want to tailor your exercise routine to your fitness needs and abilities, in real time.

With Yu's program, a virtual cyclist's path will adapt to exercise outputs. Image courtesy of Craig Yu.

Imagine strapping on a VR headset and hopping on a stationary bike. You input goals such as calorie burn, heart rate changes, and other exertion targets. You then choose the terrain you want—maybe it’s a rocky hill or a desert scene and maybe a hazard or particular landmark is added for aesthetics. The game will then suggest path length and difficulty, among other things, to help you meet those goals. After you set off and your exercise output changes and fluctuates, the path will adjust in real time so that you ultimately get the precise workout you are seeking. Along the way, elements of gamification like point scoring, goal achievement, and collecting bonuses work to incentivize you.

To develop this technology, the researchers hacked a gym bicycle with a step motor, which controls the bike’s resistance according to the elevation of the VR terrain. If the user goes uphill, the bike's resistance will increase accordingly such that the user has to push to climb the hill, resulting in haptic realism and also the desired exertion effects.

Yu has a grant from the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) I-Corps program to further develop what for now is called “the exertion-aware path generator.” I-Corps “prepares scientists and engineers to extend their focus beyond the laboratory to increase the economic and societal impact of NSF-funded projects.” It helps academics think about commercializing their product via market research, iterative product development, and other common elements of bringing a product to market. While what they built was a prototype, the team is learning how to develop their creation to appeal to gym equipment companies such as Peloton, for example.

The I-Corps program is extensive, Yu says. “We have one month where we meet with NSF coaches and members of other teams. We learn different aspects of commercialization and customer discovery.” Among other things, participants must interview at least 100 potential customers about their product, helping to determine if a market actually exists for the device and, if so, if the product meets customer needs in its present form.

Yu says they talked to people from defense contractors, government agencies, and schools, among other places, with positive feedback, mostly around the practical challenges of using and getting used to VR experiences.

Yu is optimistic about the future of VR, noting that an extensive gaming culture among incoming college students leads many to want to explore research in the field. He recalls his own interest. “I was a junior faculty when Oculus Quest (an early VR headset) came out. It really amazed me! It was very cheap and we could do a lot of research projects based on it, including developing training and education programs.”

Yu says those practical uses are just now being fully explored. “On one hand, you need to make training really effective, not just fun. It should teach people something essential for their job. If someone performs very well in VR training, does it mean the person can perform equally well in the workplace? So there's a gap here and this is exactly what researchers are looking at, like whether people can transfer the knowledge effectively.”

But in the meantime, strap on the VR headset, pull up a course ending on the Champs-Élysées and pretend you’re wearing the yellow jersey as you hit that calorie goal. Fortunately, the croissants waiting for you at your ride’s end are only virtual.

Thumbnail art created by Simon Waldherr under CC BY-SA 4.0.

In This Story

Craig Yu

Learn more about Computer Science at Mason

Topics

virtual reality

computer science

Computer Game Technology

Exercise

entrepreneurship

I-Corps

National Science Foundation

Research

From Invention to Impact: I-Corps at Mason

Colleen Rich — Thu, 11 Nov 2021 21:37:30 +0000

From Invention to Impact: I-Corps at Mason Colleen Rich Thu, 11/11/2021 - 16:37

In This Story

David Lattanzi

David J. Miller

��AV researchers are constantly working to serious real-world problems. For these academic discoveries to have the greatest possible impact in the shortest span of time, they would have to be brought out of the lab and into society at scale. A highly efficient vehicle for this is commercialization.

However, the start-up ecosystem and academia can be very different worlds. Good entrepreneurs may have difficulty translating scientific insights to the marketplace. ��AV are often motivated by the pure love of science and may struggle to identify viable commercial opportunities.

The National Science Foundation (NSF)’s I-Corps program is an accelerator that helps entrepreneurs and researchers work together “to bring invention to impact.” The program consists of both financial support and experiential education designed to fast-track the commercialization of scientific discoveries.

Mason serves as an official I-Corps site, supporting local grantees through the exploratory stages of venture-building, as well as preparing them to apply for the national-level program. The current site grantees are David J. Miller, director of the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the School of Business, and Ali Andalibi, senior associate dean of the College of Science.

Harsha Rajasimha presented Jeeva Informatics at Mason's venture capital conference, Accelerate 2022, in October. Photo by Max Taylor/Max Taylor Photography

I-Corps teams comprise an entrepreneurial lead, typically a student or post-doc; an academic lead, usually a staff or faculty member; and a mentor, who can be a non-Mason affiliate.

Several Mason teams have been selected as I-Corps participants. In 2019, for example, Ancha Baranova, a professor of systems biology at Mason, and Harsha Rajasimha, a Mason academic affiliate and former head of health care R&D at NTTDATA Services, travelled to Boston where they completed the program as the highest-performing team in the cohort.

The idea Baranova and Rajasimha took to I-Corps was to build a platform for remote clinical trials. Before COVID-19, patients in pharmaceutical clinical trials were required, almost without exception, to show up for a series of medical appointments in person. Not surprisingly, recruiting enough participants was a perennial challenge for trial organizers. It was a lose-lose for both the scientists and patients who might otherwise have benefited from innovative treatments. The Mason team envisioned a Zoom-like solution that would radically democratize access to potentially life-saving experimental therapies.

Ancha Baranova. Photo provided

Baranova and Rajasimha describe their seven-week I-Corps experience as tough but extremely rewarding. The curriculum is based on Steve Blank’s famous “Lean LaunchPad” start-up course at Stanford University, which trains budding entrepreneurs to apply the scientific method to building a business—an ideal approach for translating research insights into commercial innovation.

I-Corps participants are taught to treat their proposed business model as an experiment whose hypotheses must be rigorously tested before moving forward. They gather feedback from a battery of experienced industry professionals, immersing themselves in the ecosystem they plan to enter and emerging from each interview with quantifiable knowledge.

The subsequent launch of Jeeva Informatics, of which Rajasimha currently serves as CEO, would not have been possible without I-Corps, the pair said. Since graduating from the program, Rajasimha has received funding from more than 20 investors and an inaugural Commonwealth Commercial Fund grant from the Commonwealth of Virginia. Jeeva has become a full-scale provider of cloud-based tech solutions allowing trial organizers to recruit participants three times faster than before, according to company literature.

Baranova is also passing the knowledge gained onto Mason students.

“I-Corps insights were incorporated into the teaching curriculum at Mason, particularly is the class Research and Development in a Biotechnological Company, which equips biology majors with bankable experiences preparing them to apply to industry jobs and to start new ventures,” said Baranova.

Mason engineering professor David Lattanzi and Mason alum Ali Khaloo working together in the lab during Khaloo's PhD days at Mason in 2014. Photo by Evan Cantwell/Creative Services

Mason engineering professor David Lattanzi and Mason alum Ali Khaloo made up another I-Corps team. They said the I-Corps curriculum helped them develop their initial idea—a centralized data management platform for civil engineers and inspectors—into a start-up with clear and feasible plans for growth.

For Khaloo, who graduated from Mason with a PhD in civil and infrastructure engineering, I-Corps was “life-changing,” setting him on a path to becoming the entrepreneur and graduate of Cornell Tech Runway Startups he is today.

“The creation of an NSF I-Corps site at Mason has added a new dimension to the university’s already robust entrepreneurship and innovation infrastructure,” said Hina Mehta, director of Mason’s Office of Technology Transfer. “It helps tie together our research faculty and graduate and undergraduate communities with the broader business and entrepreneurial communities in Northern Virginia and throughout the Commonwealth of Virginia.

I-Corps is actively soliciting new applicants for 2022, aided by a substantial grant earmarked to expand inclusivity in entrepreneurship. In addition, Nov. 17 marks the beginning of an eight-month I-Corps Wearables Initiative at Mason, in which industry experts and mentors host sessions at venues including the MIX at Horizon Hall on the Fairfax Campus.

“From health and fitness, to industrial, defense and daily convenience, the wearables segment is growing with opportunities for researchers, innovators and entrepreneurs,” said Miller.

For more information or to submit an application, visit the I-Corps website.