Ready, Set, Fit

Elaine Langone Center, Terrace Room

As widely reported in the news media, the majority of Americans are not motivated to get outside and walk to get exercise. As a result of this, sedentary lifestyles are formed which can lead to health problems later on in life. To solve this problem we hope to motivate different communities to walk and exercise around the town while also learning the history associated with the environment with the “Ready, Set, Fit” app. The app loads several paths from the internet onto the user’s device. The user can then select and load any path that they have downloaded to follow as a workout. As the user follows the path, they will reach several points of interest along the route marked by the line on the path. When a user reaches a point of interest, a pop up with information about that point, and an image or video will appear on the screen. Once a user has reached all points of interest, or manually clicked a button to finish a workout, it is saved to their device and can be reviewed at a later date. Over this summer, student interns gathered data and historical information about towns located near Bucknell University in the Susquehanna River Valley. Some of the towns we worked with include Milton, Sunbury, Danville and Williamsport. Using the Google My Maps App, we created multiple digital paths in the Lewisburg area and the Bucknell campus including: the Arboretum, an Admissions Tour, Historical Information on the university. In order to produce as many paths as possible, we focused much of our time on paths for Bucknell. For example, we made an archival tour of the campus, using photos from databases to capture what campus was like in the past. We also worked with admissions and created a self-guided tour of the campus which was tailored for prospective students. As an example of university/community collaboration we focus on T.I.M.E. in Milton. Most recently, the post-industrial town of Milton has been working on updating their Milton in Motion program which motivates people to get out and walk around the town and incentivizes the activity through rewards and discounts at local shops. For future development we hope to give the public the ability to make their own paths through the easy-to-use Google My Maps app. By crowdsourcing “Ready, Set, Fit,” path creation of walking routes with historical and cultural content will be collected at a quicker rate and will be uniquely relevant to the users who created them thereby increasing motivation to get outside and walk.