PSU Student Wins Prize for Fitness Tracking Device

For those who are avid gym goers and find it hard to track your routines, you will appreciate the idea that just recently won Ideablob.com's $10,000 monthly challenge. As a passionate weight lifter, I have often pondered some sort of portable touch screen device that syncs with a fitness-based social networking site. Penn State student and inventor, Matt Allison, will be committing the prize money to building the product that he is aiming to have function like a virtual personal trainer that logs workouts, monitors progress, and that will even come equipped with a personal heart rate monitor. The goal is to have the device upload workouts, future advice, daily nutrition information, and progress charts from the company's website so that the user has an interactive utility to maximize efforts and efficiency in the gym.

I completely agree with Allison and his partner, Ron Humer, who realized that many people don't know how to properly exercise and structure routines. I still have trouble balancing and planning routines as well as planning my next steps in the gym even though I have been going and talking to people for years. If designed right, the product has potential to solve many problems. Planning and tracking routines is usually tedious and annoying to do either while working out or after returning home. Searching for the right information is also tiresome and is never readily available when you need it the most in the gym. For these reasons, a service like this could apply to seasoned lifters as well as novices.

Allison is no stranger to the entrepreneurial world; he already has another technology innovations company called M.R. Innovations Solutions, LLC. With a coming major in Economics and minor in Engineering Entrepreneurship, he should have solid background. But it still seems that he will have to recruit other specialists and more seasoned entrepreneurs to perfect a usable device and application.

I wonder if he is planning on building an application on devices such as the iPod or iPhone, or building out a completely new simpler device. Price point might be an issue, if it's expensive, a device solely for this purpose will likely not cater well to the general public. I would love to have it on my iTouch, but would probably not pay a sizable amount for yet another piece of gear to carry alongside my music player. Also Allison could bypass a lot of the high costs associated with engineering design and manufacturing that would come with producing a gadget.