grazzhoppa
07-25-03, 03:22 PM
So, a large portion of Americans are fat. And the market for overlypriced, crap that promises to target those problem areas seems to be here for a long time.
A couple days ago, I went to my cousin's house in the Poconos. Well, it's not exactly a house yet, they're building the house and there going to set up a farm in the mountains. Anyway, they had a quad. A quad is something like a dirtbike with 4 wheels, or you could imagine it as a smaller dune buggy (in case you never heard of one). So, I rode on it in the mountains over rocks, huge tree roots, jumps and grasses. The next day my thighs were killing me and so was my ass. That thing really excersizes your muscles. Even my arms were sore from lifting up for jumps and whatnot. And I'm not out of shape, but not an athlete by any means.
So here's the idea that I think would market extremely well to health clubs at first, then as the technology becomes easier and cheaper to produce, it'll be available to individuals: If you can imagine an arcade game, where you sit on that plastic motorcycle, or your inside a racecar cockpit, and put an Imax-like screen around the person, and you have the basic shape.
It'll be a virual reality excerciser. And you can have programmable terrains that you right in front your eyes, just like an arcade game. You'll be able to put whatever vehicle/exercise machine in there. There could be a quad hooked up to pneumatic suspension to mimick the terrain or a simple cross country skiing machine in there. Casual exercising is all you need to stay healthy and you don't need to get your heart rate much above 140 to be burning the fat most efficienty, so this product would be fun and give people a motivation for getting their heart rate up each day.
And considering the time it would take for this to drop in price...the generation of X-Boxers, and Playstationers would be in their 30's and 40's, the time when you need to take an initiative to staying healthy. So, the demographic it would be selling to, wouldn't be rejecting it cause its something new.
Of course it wouldn't be the hottest seller out there, cause people still like to read the newspaper or watch the news...or their TV programs while working out. But for the ones who don't have a regular excercize program or need motivation for working out, a game type machine or VR is a great idea.
Even though there are ways to simulate going up hills with today's equipment, the feeling isn't the same as actually being outside and going up a real hill. The VR machine won't be the same feeling either but you'll see something...maybe even a fan to blow wind at you when your going downhill....a rain machine...who knows! With my excercise bike, when the resistance is increased, I don't know if I'm going uphill and staying in the same gear, or just changing gears and going on level terrain....it's annoying to think that I spent $300 for a single gear bike!
You won't be shooting aliens or racing AI just an environment displayed on the screen, and the excercise equipment/vehicle wired into the terrain that's displayed around the person. The technology is here but it would require some fine tuning, so it would be more realistic than today's arcade games....and of course there would have to be research into producing the technology so the machine is affordable. But by giving a few sample products to health clubs, you could get feedback from normal users.
So, did I explain it well enough that I could get some suggestions for the technology part of it?
Arcade game type enclosure
A screen that would project an environment around the person.
The evironments would programable, like video games.
Fans, maybe a sprinkler above the person to simulate outside conditions.
And for the lazy Americans....a cup holder to hold your expensive Gatorade and a nice microwave within reach, so you could cook anything in case you get hungary ;).
**I won't be actually creating a company or selling this idea/patenting it. And you could kindly tell me they have something like this already out there. :)
A couple days ago, I went to my cousin's house in the Poconos. Well, it's not exactly a house yet, they're building the house and there going to set up a farm in the mountains. Anyway, they had a quad. A quad is something like a dirtbike with 4 wheels, or you could imagine it as a smaller dune buggy (in case you never heard of one). So, I rode on it in the mountains over rocks, huge tree roots, jumps and grasses. The next day my thighs were killing me and so was my ass. That thing really excersizes your muscles. Even my arms were sore from lifting up for jumps and whatnot. And I'm not out of shape, but not an athlete by any means.
So here's the idea that I think would market extremely well to health clubs at first, then as the technology becomes easier and cheaper to produce, it'll be available to individuals: If you can imagine an arcade game, where you sit on that plastic motorcycle, or your inside a racecar cockpit, and put an Imax-like screen around the person, and you have the basic shape.
It'll be a virual reality excerciser. And you can have programmable terrains that you right in front your eyes, just like an arcade game. You'll be able to put whatever vehicle/exercise machine in there. There could be a quad hooked up to pneumatic suspension to mimick the terrain or a simple cross country skiing machine in there. Casual exercising is all you need to stay healthy and you don't need to get your heart rate much above 140 to be burning the fat most efficienty, so this product would be fun and give people a motivation for getting their heart rate up each day.
And considering the time it would take for this to drop in price...the generation of X-Boxers, and Playstationers would be in their 30's and 40's, the time when you need to take an initiative to staying healthy. So, the demographic it would be selling to, wouldn't be rejecting it cause its something new.
Of course it wouldn't be the hottest seller out there, cause people still like to read the newspaper or watch the news...or their TV programs while working out. But for the ones who don't have a regular excercize program or need motivation for working out, a game type machine or VR is a great idea.
Even though there are ways to simulate going up hills with today's equipment, the feeling isn't the same as actually being outside and going up a real hill. The VR machine won't be the same feeling either but you'll see something...maybe even a fan to blow wind at you when your going downhill....a rain machine...who knows! With my excercise bike, when the resistance is increased, I don't know if I'm going uphill and staying in the same gear, or just changing gears and going on level terrain....it's annoying to think that I spent $300 for a single gear bike!
You won't be shooting aliens or racing AI just an environment displayed on the screen, and the excercise equipment/vehicle wired into the terrain that's displayed around the person. The technology is here but it would require some fine tuning, so it would be more realistic than today's arcade games....and of course there would have to be research into producing the technology so the machine is affordable. But by giving a few sample products to health clubs, you could get feedback from normal users.
So, did I explain it well enough that I could get some suggestions for the technology part of it?
Arcade game type enclosure
A screen that would project an environment around the person.
The evironments would programable, like video games.
Fans, maybe a sprinkler above the person to simulate outside conditions.
And for the lazy Americans....a cup holder to hold your expensive Gatorade and a nice microwave within reach, so you could cook anything in case you get hungary ;).
**I won't be actually creating a company or selling this idea/patenting it. And you could kindly tell me they have something like this already out there. :)