Pet Steps
Did you have a Tamagotchi when you were younger? We did and we loved taking care of it. When we were brainstorming ideas for how to get out there and motivate someone to exercise, we thought to create a virtual pet. From there Pet Steps was born! Pet Steps is the virtual pet conveniently located on your wrist via the Apple Watch.
When you download Pet Steps you are given a new puppy that requires you to fulfill three needs for it to be happy and are used to calculate the mood of your puppy. The more often you meet its needs the happier it will become. If you don’t meet them then it will become sad and apathetic.
The three needs that must be completed to maintain a happy puppy are to go on walks, to be played with and to be given treats. The ways these are accomplished are below.
· Walk Yo Pet: Walk your new puppy while going on a walk or run yourself. Using the pedometer on the watch we are able to keep up with the distance you ran along with the time that it took you to do it.
· Play time: Play with your pet when you reach your goal of exercise for the day. Play time is based off of meeting the exercise goals that you have set for yourself.
· Treat Yo Pet: You set the goals for how many calories to burn. When you reach checkpoints within your goal your puppy earns a treat. We are able to calculate how many calories you burn with the accelerometer on the watch. This combines the heart rate monitor, pedometer and movement monitor to tell you how many calories you have burned.
So why create Pet Steps? We wanted to make an application that was more than just data and more than a notification that pops up. We wanted to motivate you to exercise with encouragement and not with the shame of not meeting a daily goal. To complete this goal we decided to merge the nostalgia of a virtual pet with the health benefits of a fitness app to create something that is fun while also helpful in maintaining a healthy lifestyle.
Our team is made up of four amazing women.
Carley Gainous is from Cairo, GA and is majoring in Advertising. Her role in Pet Steps is as a content producer, as lead programmer for the application and she also helps to manage our team.
Anna Hensley is from Ellijay, GA and is majoring in Magazine Journalism. Her role in Pet Steps is as Producer, helping create content and is the programmer for the website.
Samantha Woo is from Cumming, GA and is majoring in Art X. She is one of our programmers on both the website and the app itself. She also helps with the graphic design for Pet Steps.
Ina Zaprynova is from Plovdiv, Bulgaria and is majoring in Art X. She is the head Visual Designer for Pet Steps.
We hope to see you at the New Media SLAM on December 4th, 2015 and show you just how Pet Steps is going to change how you view fitness.
