This year, I will be joining Keyon Tanksley with the continuation of his previous project, A.I.R. We are building upon last year’s project, which was a conceptual app that allowed athletes to have all the features of a physical therapist in their pockets. The app monitors the progression of their injury and offers tips to prevent future re-injury. The instructions for treating their injury will correspond to the user’s sport. This will ensure each athlete receives the correct information about their injury and when they can return to playing their respective sport.

Our goal in developing this app is to combat the high expenses of physical therapists and health care. As athletes, we understand how expensive sports can get. Equipment, jerseys, and transportation fees do not include the additional expenses you would need to pay if you experience an injury. Carrying out the development of this app would relieve athletes of the financial duties directed to their injuries. Specifically, people in marginalized communities would benefit most from this app. Sports should be a fun activity everyone involves themselves with, and financial responsibilities should be the least of anyone’s worries.

I decided to partner up with Keyon Tanksley due to an injury that occurred to me in May 2023. While playing in a club basketball tournament, I dislocated my shoulder and tore my labrum. I did not realize how expensive treatment and physical therapy was. Monthly checkups with my doctor were an astounding $100 bucks per visit, with each lasting a maximum of 15 minutes. During this time, I was thinking about how to incorporate my situation into my i2 project. Then, upon further research, my fellow friend Keyon embarked on this journey. So, I decided to join him and help carry out the further development of the A.I.R. app.

The biggest challenge we see is to combat the newest innovation of ChatGPT and how we can make our app provide something that A.I. cannot do.