TiltTrack

Overview : Developed a balance training device that uses a gyroscope to track stability and provides feedback via LEDs and a servo-actuated arrow, helping users improve coordination through adjustable, threshold-based exercises.

Tools/Skills : Project Management, CAD, Arduino, Soldering, Programming, Circuit Schematics, Prototyping, Machining

Team : Leo Schroeder, Bernie Xu, Helen Yang

Timeline : 10 weeks

Awards : 1st place amongst 25 other teams

How does it work?

Think of it as a balance trainer for athletes, where the trainer is a device mounted on a balance board. Using a gyroscope, the device measures the user’s tilt and position, determining whether they are “on balance” or “off balance” based on a preset circular threshold. LEDs provide immediate feedback on balance status, while an arrow on a servo motor averages balance over time, pointing between 0° (off balance) and 180° (on balance). The adjustable threshold can be tuned via a computer program to match the user's skill level, ensuring a customized and effective training experience.

Problem Space

Problem : Many athletes struggle to improve their balance and coordination due to a lack of effective tools that provide real-time, actionable feedback during training exercises.

Challenge : How might we create a device that provides accurate, tangible, and immediate feedback to help athletes improve their balance and coordination?

Statistics : Balance and coordination are key components of athletic performance, with imbalance leading to a significant risk of injury during sports activities.

Users :

Athletes aiming to enhance their performance and prevent injuries by improving balance and coordination.
Physical therapists and trainers who require tools to assess and track an athlete's stability during exercises.
Recreational users seeking to improve fitness and stability through structured balance training exercises.

Inspiration : For new skiers, maintaining balance on a downslope can be challenging. Inspired by this, we designed a device to provide real-time feedback on speed and rotation, alerting users when they exceed balance thresholds. Since testing on skiing slopes posed challenges, we developed a versatile training device suitable for athletes like skiers, surfers, and others looking to improve their balance. This is one of the key points of our device is that it's aimed to improve inclusivity where a user can perform any type of exercise such as push ups, apart from just standing on top of the balance board.

Testing

We computed tests to meausre the accuracy of the rotational motion where we compared the actual measurement of an angle (using a unit circle) to the readings from the sensor on the balance board and computed the percent error. All errors were below 2%. Similarly, the feedback from the servo motor was tested by moving the board off balance a percentage of the time and measuring how accurate the readings displayed by the servo were. Both of these objectives were well within the 5% error margin, thus achieving our main objectives.

Conceptual Design

Glass Box

The Glass Box is a conceptual tool that is used to establish the functions that your design must perform where essentially, the device is reverse engineered. The functional analysis acts as a bridge into conceptual design (where I begin to start defining the means that I use to achieve each function).

Pairwise Comparison Chart

This allowed us to understand which objectives to priotise and rank them accordingly from 0-9.

Morph Chart

A morph chart is used to create a design space, where it contains all possible means that we can think of to perform a function. This allowed us to come up with all the possible ways of achieving the same function and select the most effective one.

Building

Product Sketch

A product sketch was created to visualise what the final product would look like and the different components

CAD drawings

CAD models for the enclosures were created on Solidwords. The enclosures were 3D printed using ABS plastic.

Circuit Diagram

Using TinkerCad, we constructed a circuit diagram that we could then test virtually, using our code to see if the circuit works and troubleshoot any errors.

Code Flowchart

With more complex design projects, it's essential to create an outline of what our code should achieve and a flowchart allowed us to visualise the steps the code would take to achieve our objective. The code uses a running average user’s balance throughout their exercise and points between 0 and 180 degrees, where 0 is completely off balance, and 180 is always on balance on the servo motor. The equation of a circle (explained below) was used as the threshold, and if any point on the balance board exceeds the preset radius, it will be considered off-balance. Similarly, if the user stays within the threshold, then it will be considered on-balance. The threshold is set through a computer program and can be changed to make the exercise easier or harder.

Bill of Materials

We learnt to create a bill of materials to keep tracks of the supplies and the cost as our device shouldn't exceed the $200 limit set by our client.

Power Budget Calculations

In order to ensure our battery lasts a sufficient time, we calculated the hours of operation for the rechargeable 3.7 V batteries we picked, and as seen, it can theoretically last for 8.35 hours.

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