Pull Up Faster or Face the Taser
Terence Grover’s Pull-Up Trainer solves the problem of exercise motivation through a masochistic form of gamification.
Gamification is a really useful tool, as it takes the things that make video games satisfying, such as clear goals and timely rewards, and applies them to real-life scenarios. Gamification is why your calorie-counting app tracks your streaks and makes a pleasant chime whenever you log a meal. But a nice sound effect isn’t a particularly enticing reward and some tasks require gamification with stronger motivation. That’s why Terence Grover built this pull-up training contraption that tazes him if he doesn’t improve.
Like most forms of exercise, the goal here is simple: just pull yourself up and tap one of the big buttons to log the rep. The difficult part is making yourself actually do that, which is a lot easier when the alternative is a zap that is both painful and humiliating.
In this case, that zap comes from a homemade taser that quite obviously requires a disclaimer: don’t make your own taser! If you do it wrong, you might not even be around to sue us anymore. We’re not even going to explain how Grover built his — that’s how bad of an idea it is.
We will, however, tell you that Grover designed the taser bit to strap to his leg and work under the control of an ESP32 development board. It communicates with a second ESP32 on the pull-bar via ESP-NOW.
That second ESP32 keeps track of the score, displays the score, and sends the “tase now” signal when the score isn’t going up fast enough. Inspired by some video on social media, Grover mounted four large arcade buttons above the pull-up bar. To increase the challenge, those illuminate randomly and the exhausted exerciser must press the lit button to increase their score. The board also has two four-digit seven-segment displays to show the current score and the high score.
“No pain, no gain” is a popular phrase among the kinds of people who can tell you which protein shake powder brands taste best, but Grover’s Pull-Up Trainer takes that to another very literal level. Most of us lack the dedication to fitness to subject ourselves to such a thing, but it sure does seem like an effective example of gamification.