HealthHero app aims to get kids involved in tracking health data

Innovations

STEMHero and Red Arrow Labs
Milwaukee
Innovation: HealthHero
www.stemhero.com


 

A preliminary version of the homepage for the HealthHero application.
A preliminary version of the homepage for the HealthHero application.

A web application developed by a cohort of Milwaukee innovators aims to get youth involved in tracking their health metrics, and more engaged in STEM subjects.

- Advertisement -

The mobile-friendly web app, known as HealthHero, uses the concept of gamification to turn tracking adolescent health indicators into a fun and engaging task.

In October, HealthHero beat out 10 other finalists to win the Tournavation competition sponsored by Milwaukee’s The Dohman Company Foundation, which called for technology ideas that would improve public health.

The Dohmen Company Foundation is the charitable arm of Milwaukee-based Dohmen Co. It leads Tournavation in partnership with Dohmen’s application and software development arm, Red Arrow Labs, young professional association NEWaukee, the City of Milwaukee, and the Milwaukee Lifecourse Initiative for Healthy Families at United Way of Greater Milwaukee & Waukesha County. Tournavation is a crowd-sourced idea generation platform that addresses important issues that face urban communities like Milwaukee.

- Advertisement -

HealthHero was selected by the competition’s judges as the most viable, scalable and concrete idea, and is now being designed and developed by a team of volunteer IT development professionals led by Red Arrow Labs, with the ultimate goal of producing a software solution for the community.

Nate Conroy and Dan Matthews of STEMHero came up with the idea for HealthHero, which is based on the company’s existing educational tools for tracking energy and water data. STEMHero is housed in the STEM department at MSOE.

“Nate and I have worked with students a lot in terms of their own water and energy data,” Matthews said. “(We said) let’s see if this same type of idea really resonates with people. The idea was to help students get involved with the data in their own lives.”

A mockup of the application’s data tracking system.
A mockup of the application’s data tracking system.

The app is being developed on an open source platform to allow it to be tailored to a variety of different uses, depending on the teacher’s lesson plan, said Aaron Krueger, director of community engagement at Red Arrow. A class could conduct an experiment using a blood pressure cuff, for example, and input the data into the app to track and analyze it.

One major goal of the HealthHero app, which is aimed at middle to early high school students, is to get kids engaged in learning about STEM, he said. Another is to increase students’ connection to their personal health and their influence over it.

“The way the synergy is working a little bit is that STEMHero has really been pioneering the pedagogian structural aspects of this approach to learning,” said Joshua Schultz, director of STEM and Project Lead the Way at MSOE. “How can we get students to consider STEM-type skills by tying the relevance to things you already know?”

While students may learn about interesting science topics such as space travel, the health tracking app brings science closer to home with topics such as how the amount of sleep a student gets could impact his or her blood pressure, Schultz said.

The pilot version of HealthHero collects data on an individual student’s sleep habits and alertness levels, Krueger said. The app asks the student to record how many hours she slept the previous night, and then how alert she feels throughout the day.

The student can track the data over time using charts and graphs in the application.

“The variables really depend on what’s being taught and what experiments are being run,” Krueger said. “Teachers can use that data to then say, ‘Well, you see how you had a higher level of alertness…it’s because you were more rested.’”

Red Arrow and its developer team expect to have the app completed by the end of this month, at which time the app will be piloted in Milwaukee Public Schools and through Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Milwaukee programming. Marquette University students will track the effectiveness of the app in student outcomes, Krueger said. The final version is expected to be ready following the completion of the pilot in the spring.

Boys & Girls Clubs will serve as a steward of the application in order to make it available to the whole Milwaukee community as a public health tool, he said.

“We wanted to make an impact in the community and apply technology to public health concerns,” Krueger said.


 

Get news headlines from around the state delivered to your inbox first thing Monday through Friday. Sign up for Morning Headlines at biztimes.com/subscribe.

Sign up for the BizTimes email newsletter

Stay up-to-date on the people, companies and issues that impact business in Milwaukee and Southeast Wisconsin

What's New

BizPeople

Sponsored Content

BIZEXPO | EARLY BIRD PRICING | REGISTER BY APRIL 15TH & SAVE

Stay up-to-date with our free email newsletter

Keep up with the issues, companies and people that matter most to business in the Milwaukee metro area.

By subscribing you agree to our privacy policy.

No, thank you.
BizTimes Milwaukee