Some runners take it slow while others tear up the pavement.
Either way, music gives runners their mojo, and can be the key to creating a productive, enjoyable run, according to a team of Michigan State University seniors whose fitness app, TempoRun, took first place at the national Student Startup Madness Tournament March 9.
The students won $5,000 from Google Cloud Platform, which they'll use to bring TempoRun to the iTunes market in mid-April, selling for $1.99.
In simple terms, TempoRun allows users to run at the perfect pace by categorizing their music into different levels, one to 10, based on tempo. So, a user can match a running pace with a particular beat to create a more enjoyable and fluid run. And the app will provide music for the runners if they don't have a library.
Student Startup Madness is a competition for college students' digital media startups and an official event of South by Southwest Interactive a set of film, interactive and music festivals that takes place in Austin, Texas. The judging panel for the student tournament included executives from Turner Broadcasting System, Google and Square, a mobile payment platform.
"I was running one day last year, listening to my music, and a song came on that was just the perfect beat for me," said Josh Leider, a senior marketing major. "Everything was perfect, and my run felt amazing. Then the song ended very abruptly, a new song came on that was very slow, and I couldn't adjust back into that song. I thought, 'Why can't I always run to the tempo of my music?' Hence, the idea, TempoRun."
Leider joined forces with fellow runner Benny Ebert-Zavos, a hospitality business senior, and computer science seniors Phil Getzen and Adam Proschek. Within a few months, the iPhone app was born.
TempoRun is unlike anything in the market, since other apps adjust song tempos as a runner's pace changes, Leider said. While TempoRun could expand into soci
'/>"/>
| Contact: Kristen Parker 517-353-8942 Michigan State University Source:Eurekalert |