Counting Steps with Smartphone Sensors

In this student project, students are given a research experience designed to closely mimic those in academia or industry. Their research task is to use smartphone sensors to develop the core algorithm for an accurate, reliable pedometer app which counts a user’s steps. Student are taught about the different smartphone sensors and given a tutorial for a very basic solution to their research problem as a starting point. Then they design a testing plan to evaluate the accuracy and robustness of the solution and improve their solutions through analysis of data and independent reading of other research papers. Finally, they implement their testing plan and evaluate their improved algorithms with their own and another team’s data sets, culminating in a summative research paper explaining what they did, their conclusions, and next steps.