Where fitness meets nostalgic fun!
zepptchi, a tomogachi based game app on your wrist! Made for CalHacks 10.0 Hackathon project for ZEPP OS created by Cal State East Bay Students Aneesh Pradhan, Brandon Sandoval Sanchez , Nicholas Ferreira, and Nicholas Ferreira (Table 131).
The inspiration for this project was finding a way to incentivize healthy activity. While the watch shows people data like steps taken and calories burned, that alone doesn't encourage many people to exercise. By making the app, we hope to make exercise into a game that people look forward to doing rather than something they dread.
Zepptchi is an app that allows the user to have their own virtual pet that they can take care of, similar to that of a Tamagotchi. The watch tracks the steps that the user takes and rewards them with points depending on how much they walk. With these points, the user can buy food to nourish their pet which incentivizes exercise. Beyond this, they can earn points to customize the appearance of their pet which further promotes healthy habits.
To build this project, we started by setting up the environment on the Huami OS simulator on a Macbook. This allowed us to test the code on a virtual watch before implementing it on a physical one. We used Visual Studio Code to write all of our code.
One of the main challenges we faced with this project was setting up the environment to test the watch's capabilities. Out of the 4 of us, only one could successfully install it. This was a huge setback for us since we could only write code on one device. This was worsened by the fact that the internet was unreliable so we couldn't collaborate through other means. One other challenge was
Our group was most proud of solving the issue where we couldn't get an image to display on the watch. We had been trying for a couple of hours to no avail but we finally found out that it was due to the size of the image. We are proud of this because fixing it showed that our work hadn't been for naught and we got to see our creation working right in front of us on a mobile device. On top of this, this is the first hackathon any of us ever attended so we are extremely proud of coming together and creating something potentially life-changing in such a short time.
One thing we learned is how to collaborate on projects with other people, especially when we couldn't all code simultaneously. We learned how to communicate with the one who was coding by asking questions and making observations to get to the right solution. This was much different than we were used to since school assignments typically only have one person writing code for the entire project. We also became fairly well-acquainted with JavaScript as none of us knew how to use it(at least not that well) coming into the hackathon.
The next step for Zepptchi is to include a variety of animals/creatures for the user to have as pets along with any customization that might go with it. This is crucial for the longevity of the game since people may no longer feel incentivized to exercise once they obtain the complete collection. Additionally, we can include challenges(such as burning x calories in 3 days) that give specific rewards to the user which can stave off the repetitive nature of walking steps, buying items, walking steps, buying items, and so on. With this app, we aim to gamify a person's well-being so that their future can be one of happiness and health.