I know I have not posted in a while, but I have been slacking, I have been busy developing some new sites. One of the sites is called Walk across USA, it is a completely new type of web site that is a combination of social networking, team building and fitness tracking. Here’s how I describe it on the site: A corporate contest designed to encourage exercise and friendly competition by taking a virtual walk across America on the Discovery Trail. Start a contest, form teams, track your individual steps with a pedometer and compete with your coworkers to see who can finish the Discovery trail first.

Here’s the rules we came up with, these are up to the administrator of the contest and are configurable in the Rails Application.

Random teams of 4 are created- This has been a mixed bag, there are some very competitive people getting mixed in with some not so competitive people, but that is part of the contest to get people better aquatinted along with getting in better shape.

Each person on the team will track their mileage with pedometer while the Omron pedometer is not required, its the only one I believe is accurate.

Each step will count for 3 feet – another mixed bag, the game tends to favor shorter people since their gate is smaller they get more steps. A future enhancement may have everyone measure their stride and calculate actual mileage.

The course will follow The American Discovery Trail . The trail goes through: Delaware, Maryland, West Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky, Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, Utah, Nevada and ends in California. The trail is about 5000 miles long. Adding some pictures and commentary on the trail is on the roadmap.

It is tough to get to more than 10,000 steps in a single day, although 10,000 steps a day is what you need to lose weight. As an incentive, there is a 1000 step bonus for each multiple of 10,000 steps you walk each day, i.e. 10,000 steps =1000 step bonus, 20,000 steps = 2000 step bonus. I think this has been a big win, I find myself constantly trying to get in another 500-1000 steps before bed to get the bonus and many of the other contestants say the same.

Here is some screen shots from the site:

Each contestant enters their steps for each day

The site will chart your progress

The site calculates actual steps vs. contest steps

The site aggregates individual results into team results

Team progress is shown as teams slowly make their way across the USA