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Innovation Pavilion launches 21st century playground in Olathe

Innovation Pavilion launches 21st Century Playground in Olathe

Innovation Pavilion is partnering with Aetna, one of the nation’s leading diversified health care benefits companies, and MapMyFitness, powered by Under Armour, to bring the next generation of parks and playgrounds to towns nationwide.  

The project brings IoT (Internet of Things) technology to local playgrounds, monitors activity and use, and promotes activity through real world rewards. The aim of this project is to bring more children alongside their families outdoors and involve communities in more physical activity.

In partnership with the City of Olathe, Black Bob Park was selected as the second installation site. Various wireless sensors have been installed in Black Bob Park that are working to monitor the usage of various equipment. These sensors are using RF (radio frequency) technology to send raw usage data to a centralized “Gateway.” This Gateway then sends the information to our API for storage and analytics provided by IBM. It’s important to note that these sensors are only collecting vibrations from use of the equipment and are completely incapable of gathering any sort of personal information.

According to Vic Ahmed, co-founder and CEO of Innovation Pavilion, “We have the tools to reactivate our parks and make them virtual playgrounds. We will be using technology to inspire positive changes in children behavior.”

This pilot spun off of a study by John Hopkins University that concluded an increasing rate in childhood obesity.

Through the partnership with Under Armour, Innovation Pavilion will be using MapMyFitness API and SDK in order to create a mobile application to track physical activity of children. In addition to tracking the physical activity, children and families will be encouraged to participate in more activities and have the community around them involved.

“MapMyFitness is interested in working on this project with Innovation Pavilion,” Chris Glode, VP of digital at Under Armour, said. “We believe in the cause and this project matches our vision of workout facilities of future.”

This project is part of Innovation Pavilion’s focus on city innovation and IoT.