Introducing Benefit

The sound of exciting conversations radiated from everyone’s computers as Nemesis 2590 brainstormed ideas for their next project…

One of the competitions that Nemesis participated in for the 2021 FIRST FRC season was the Innovation Challenge (IC). For this contest, teams were given the prompt, “Identify a problem or opportunity and design a solution to help people (or a community of people) keep, regain, or achieve optimum physical and/or mental health and fitness through active play or movement.”

The dedicated and hard-working Nemesis IC subteam immediately jumped in to take on the challenge. Although the entire season was fully virtual, this obstacle did not hinder Nemesis in any way. Many excellent ideas were developed during the first few weeks, from fitness tracking shoes to an online platform with live workout challenges. After going back and forth between many inspirational proposals, the team ultimately decided on BeneFit.

BeneFit is a free fitness app that emphasizes a physical and mental health balance. The app greets the user with a screen that asks how the user is feeling. Based on this information, the app recommends a specific workout tailored to the user, ranging from high-intensity training to yoga and meditation. At the end of the workout, users answer another brief survey on their likes and dislikes of the workout they just did. Through this process, BeneFit learns the user’s preferences to improve the recommendation system for future workouts and the app can provide unique workouts to each user. This design helps to bridge the gap between mental and physical health, as the system revolves around the emotions of the user.

The app has many other aspects as well, such as a personalized daily schedule, avatar customization through in-app currency, and the option to order food within BeneFit through vendors such as Hello Fresh. BeneFit also has a feature that imitates working out with friends through real-time progress reports of all the participants, even if they aren’t physically there together. This was an especially relevant feature at the time since many people refrained from meeting others during the Covid pandemic.

Extensive planning was needed to make BeneFit. The IC team conducted thorough research to formulate the business plan for the app. Many factors, such as video ads, affiliate links, in-app purchases, customer outreach, and other resources needed for BeneFit were taken into account when making the business plan. Several user experience mockups were created to show the interface of the app, and a detailed competitive analysis comparing BeneFit with other popular health apps such as Calm and Weight Watchers was done as well. Furthermore, the team consulted several experts from different fields such as mental health, software, and finance to seek feedback and improve BeneFit as much as possible.

Nemesis advanced to the semifinals for the 2021 Innovation Challenge. However, the story doesn’t end here! The team submitted the idea of BeneFit for the 2021 Altice Innovator Awards. Nemesis won first place for the Innovative Design Concept Award and the runner-up for the Outstanding Business Model Award. In total, Nemesis was presented with a grant of $2500.

Although the virtual season was not ideal, Nemesis was very proud of what they achieved. BeneFit is a creative innovation that is very useful for individuals striving to improve their mental and physical health. The team was grateful to take part in the 2021 Innovation Challenge.