The iPulse is a heart beat and cadence matching iPod Accessory and will revolutionize the way you listen to music.
Overview
As a senior in the Northeastern University Electrical & Computer Engineering Department, you are required to complete a 1 year project known as Capstone or Senior Design. This includes researching, prototyping and presenting to a panel of judges from the industry.
The Idea
From the beginning, I wanted to create a capstone project encompassing GPS or autonomous vehicles. Looking at what has been designed and out on the market, I realized that the time frame given and small budget would not allow us to create some great. I began to look into iPods mainly because of their popularity and my love of Apple devices. I noticed that iPods really only play music in a static way. Users build playlists or select artist based on their mood. If shuffle mode is selected, song selection is random and can sometimes become annoying. To remedy this issue, I decided to design a device that could use biofeedback from the user and select songs based on current heart rate or jogging speeds.
The Team
My team consisted of 4 Northeastern University Engineers who happen to be close friends of mine.
- Jonathan Cohn (myself): Electrical and Computer Engineer
- Mike Doran: Electrical and Computer Engineer
- Mike Maker: Electrical Engineer and Biomed Minor
- Jen Rowen: Electrical Engineer and Biomed Minor
The Goals
- Beat match song tempo with current heart rate
- Beat match song tempo with current cadence
- Record heart rate and song selection over time for later viewing
- sync with computer via usb
- Auto classify songs using beat-detection algorithms
- Allow manual classification of songs with strange beats
- Prompt users current heart rate with audio notification
- Small design and powered off iPod device
- Compatible with 3rd Generation iPods and later
Copyright and Patent Information
Please note that the iPulse name and Apple Heart are only used as ‘gimmicks’ and should not be taken seriously. The device does work as explained, but the word ‘iPulse’ and the Apple Heart I designed are merely for publicity.