Elite Swimmer Chuck Katis Launches The Bodbox Kickstarter

by SwimSwam Partner Content 9

September 26th, 2016 Industry, News

“If there was ever a time I needed the swimming community, it is right now. Out of the ashes and residual energy of a 2016 Olympic goal, emerged an idea for a robot that could help anyone train at the level I’ve had the wonderful opportunity to experience at both Harvard and Berkeley. It’s sort of like having a pet robot at the gym, but it can make you fitter, stronger, and faster, especially in the water. There’s a ton of energy, experience, and knowledge inside this robot companion and I’d love for you to help me take it even bigger by showing support for our kickstarter at https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1841446861/the-bod-box.”

Chuck Katis Launches The Bodbox Kickstarter (courtesy of Chuck Katis)

Here’s what Bodbox does for everyone:

1. The Bodbox Assessment – it learns about you.

2. Recommend ideal workout – it knows what you should do.

3. Recommend ideal diet – it tells you what to eat.

4. Data to your email inbox – it gives you feedback.

5. Update recommendations based on actual performance.

Here’s what it can do for any current athlete:

1. Allows you to track and optimize any movement

Chuck Katis Launches The Bodbox Kickstarter (courtesy of Chuck Katis)2. Optimize your diet for peak performance

3. Track reps, velocity, acceleration

4. View graphs and progress data specific to your training

Application ideas by sport:

swimming (waterproof case) – starts, turns, stroke mechanics, hip movement, dryland

ball/team sports – ball handling, optimal passing, velocity (when should you get off the court or field), any technique broken down into data

tri, biking, running, soul cycle – compete via average velocity over a session, observe and compare specific movements via hard data

Chuck Katis Launches The Bodbox Kickstarter (courtesy of Chuck Katis)other water sports (surfing, waterski, skiing, snowboard) – create a simple mount and you can track hip movement, technique, and any other data you can imagine

military, police – speed training, holstering, be trained anywhere with wifi, full medball workouts with a rock, remote training

crossfit/lifting – track lifts and workouts and get meaningful data

Support Chuck’s KICKSTARTER here!

The bodbox (www.thebodbox.com) began as a simple hacked together way for Chuck and other pro and olympic athletes to get better. It’s raw and authentic even in it’s early form. We’re only making 25 of this first version. Manufactured by hand. When you buy a box, you join our family. You’ll be send raw data, team updates, and be directly involved in the design choices we make moving forward.

There is also more content and background at WWW.THEBODBOX.COM

HOW IT WORKS:

The Bodbox uses object tracking to recommend workouts and diet plans based on Chuck and our team’s extensive knowledge and experience with optimal training.

All you need to do is charge it up, turn on wifi, and set it down close to where you’ll be working out. You can also use our underwater pelican case, and various holsters to make your own applications and track and get data/feedback on nearly any movement.

Support Chuck’s KICKSTARTER here!

Here’s what’s under the hood:

The way we’re building that right now is bare bones and simple – raspberry pi, preloaded SD cards sent to you physically when there’s a firmware update or a pro athlete ‘takeover’, some python, and of course the secret sauce we use to max out your time working out.

Runs on a usb phone battery pack (included) – will run for upwards of 8 hours straight before a charge is needed – if you worked out that long in one day Bod might just give you a day off to charge up again 😉

Support Chuck’s KICKSTARTER here!

Start up steps…

…if you’re one of the 50 to 25 lucky Bodbox OG owners/early adopters:

1. Open the first email Bod sends you when your Bodbox arrives.

2. Connect the USB battery pack to the mini computer inside Bod (make sure the battery pack is charged).

3. Set the wifi hotspot on your phone (Bod emails you three step instructions to set this up).

4. Do your workout.

5. Bod team invites you to a workout/diet calendar based on our number crunching to get you fit, healthy, and sexy all with a taped up medball and your new robo friend.

Chuck Katis Launches The Bodbox Kickstarter (courtesy of Chuck Katis)

Adopt early and support the KICKSTARTED here. 

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See the Bodbox HQ
Chuck Katis Launches The Bodbox Kickstarter (courtesy of Chuck Katis)

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Fan
7 years ago

Chuck, love the product and the overall concept. I wish you best of luck. But the real question is- how in the heck did you figure out how to swim a 50 breaststroke in 22 seconds? Seriously…

completelyconquered
7 years ago

I’m gonna need the Dadbodbox.

Chuck Katis
Reply to  completelyconquered
7 years ago

hey it’s chuck – the bodbox is a tool that’s custom to you and learns directly from you to make YOU better so yours is definitely a dadbox 🙂

dabears
7 years ago

Pretty cool idea, lots of work to do, did Chuck study computer science? How does he plan to advance the software, by bringing on a software engineer? Will he bring on a personal trainer or dietician/nutritionist with some kind of professional training or credentials? Right now it’s just a camera with a python script for motion tracking.

Chuck Katis
Reply to  dabears
7 years ago

Appreciate the support! Lots of questions and I love it – feel free to reach out to me directly for lots of exciting answers. Would love to chat (Facebook is probably easiest).

Skeptic
Reply to  dabears
7 years ago

Agreed – much more impressed with the marketing videos than the actual content here. The paltry “Risks and challenges” section on Kickstarter is a big warning sign.

Also, there doesn’t seem to be much justification for the application, and it’s certainly not self-evident. Reps, velocity, and acceleration data is not useful without some sort of context, and it’s a lot of work to go through that data to glean something meaningful from it.

The demos also don’t adequately demonstrate the camera’s ability to handle distance and noise. This is especially important for swimming, where small bubbles in the water are certain to cause issues with the camera’s tracking.

According to his old Cal roster page, Chuck studied economics. Your concerns… Read more »

Chuck Katis
Reply to  Skeptic
7 years ago

Hi Skeptic – thank you!

I really enjoy producing all of the fun marketing content as well as the product, websites, and backend. Incredibly grateful for the opportunities a liberal arts education at Harvard and Berkeley provided in allowing me the freedom to study outside the bounds of a singular major while most importantly instilling the swimmer-esque willingness and ability to learn anything necessary in this process – and confident you have the same!

I had shortened the risks and challenges section for the sake of simplicity but great feedback – will need to add that section back in for the Skeptics 🙂

We are only selling a few of the underwater safe versions due to this additional… Read more »

Skeptic
Reply to  Chuck Katis
7 years ago

Hey Chuck. Thanks for the reply; your determination and passion about this project are evident and very respectable, so kudos for that. I may not be convinced that your product is going to be the next Fitbit, but your openness and great communication bode well for your product. I wish you the best and will be eagerly following the development of your product.

As Dabears pointed out, it would be nice to know who’s on board with this project. I did check out your product website, but even there we don’t get a good idea of who is bringing engineering expertise to this project. This doesn’t seem to be a one-man show, so you should advertise that fact instead of… Read more »

Chuck Katis
Reply to  Skeptic
7 years ago

Appreciate the thoughts and glad you’ll be following. Previous ideas I’ve built provided me the skill set to create and execute this myself. Undoubtedly an unparalleled support staff and network is key. Added expertise and much more will be revealed – on that note, you know what they say about good magicians…
– c