私人教练
当今社会，人们的生活越来越忙，保持身体健康变得越来越重要，而找到时间锻炼也变得越来越难。这种生活状态促使约夫•阿诺德和他的表弟本吉•吉兰姆发明了一种iPhone应用程序。这种程序可以让使用者随身携带自己的健身私人教练。比如，在做俯卧撑时，使用者只需将iPhone固定在自己的胳膊上，这个应用程序就能对运动的质量和速率进行反馈，并给出详细的报告。阿诺德说：“我们的目的就是让人们随时随地都能拥有自己的私人教练。”
 
多学科技能
阿诺德是伦敦帝国理工学院机械工程系的毕业生，吉兰姆曾在南安普顿大学学习物理数学。两个人的专业特长都在这款名为Gymfu的程序研发中得到了很好的施展。阿诺德说：“研究主要的难题在于加速数据的解释，并利用这些数据反映人体的运动状况。”发明Gymfu的想法开始于2007年。当时兄弟两人正为吉兰姆的婚礼努力锻炼身体。但是由于能去健身房的时间非常有限，他们很难保证自己的锻炼效果。出于这个原因，两个人开发了这个软件，以便能随时了解自己的锻炼进度。开发这个程序需要多学科的技能，阿诺德解释说：“这个程序的开发需要3D力矢量和信号处理方面的知识，这些正是我机械工程方面的教育背景所能提供的。同时，这一程序还要求你具备实时物理计算的能力。在读书时，学校并不强调这一技能，我们完全是通过潜移默化的方式掌握的。”阿诺德说，实时物理计算是这个程序的核心，也是别人难以复制的关键。
 
惊人的新研究
阿诺德总结说：“程序应用了数学、信号处理、网络、信息系统工程、软件设计、硬件接口技术。 这几乎是我们两个人所修过的大部分课程。”阿诺德相信，还有其他人在做这种软件。但Gymfu的成功使他们有了更大的科学上的抱负。“最令人兴奋的事我们所做的东西已经得到了改进。我们下一步的研究会令人所有人吃惊，”阿诺德对此有所保留，“我们将把某一领域的技术推进到一个至今无人涉足的深度。”

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Personal trainer
As people’s lives get busier, it becomes more important to keep fit but more difficult to find the time to do so. This lifestyle trend prompted Jof Arnold and his cousin, Benjie Gillam, to create an application for the iPhone which they describe as having your own personal trainer with you, in your pocket. The user attaches the iPhone to their arm and the application will give feedback on push-ups, quality and speed, and give detailed reports. ‘Our intention,’ says Arnold, ‘is to give the experience of having a personal trainer all of the time, wherever you are.’ 
 
Multi-disciplinary skills
Arnold is a graduate of Mechanical Engineering at Imperial College London and Gillam studied Maths with Physics at Southampton University, and both sets of skills have been applied in developing Gymfu. ‘The main thing is interpreting acceleration data,’ says Arnold. ‘Interpreting it and using that data to work out human movement, human motion.’ The idea began back in 2007 when they were trying to get fit for Gillam’s wedding, and the time required to go to the gym meant it was easy to let it slip. So they developed this application that can monitor your exercise progress, and you can do it wherever you are. Developing it required a lot of multi-disciplinary skills, explains Arnold. ‘It required my Mechanical Engineering because I understand 3D Force Vectors, and it requires knowledge of signal processing - which I did on Mechanical Engineering. It also requires a sense of skill you don’t realise you are getting at University, because they don’t stress it, which is the ability to do physical calculations, but in real time.’ It’s this real-time physical analysis which Arnold says is at the core of the application and it’s why it is challenging for anyone else to copy. 
 
Mind-blowing
In short, Arnold says, ‘there’s mathematics, signal processing, networking, information system engineering, software design, interfacing with hardware. It’s most of both of our courses.’ Arnold believes that there are already people in the world doing this kind of software, but the success of Gymfu has made them more scientifically ambitious.‘ What’s really exciting is that what we have done already is already advanced. What we’ve got planned next is mind-blowing by comparison,’ he says without revealing much. ‘We are pushing a whole area of technology some way beyond what anyone has seen so far.’

 

 

该内容来源于英国总领事馆文化教育处