A web app that assists you in learning to shuffle dance. Bouncy Feet shows you new moves and checks if you are doing it right.
The app can be installed as a Progressive Web App or just used directly like a web page. It should work in all major browsers, on the phone or on laptops and workstations. You only need a camera which you can position in a way where your full body is clearly visible while you dance.
Let's be honest, dancing is best without interacting with your phone or laptop. Just play some music and go. The app is designed with this principle in mind and tries to support you without getting in your way.
Easy Review: After a dance, you can review your video recording. Bouncy Feet enhances the recording with timestamps and body positions it detects on the beat. If you like the video, save and share it. Otherwise, delete the video and it is gone forever. (BouncyFeet is perfectly private and never uploads the video, everything is done on your device only.)
Browse a Collection of Moves: An ever-growing list of shuffle moves are available in the app to inspire you.
Stay Motivated: Incremental statistics counting how many steps you danced in your lifetime using the app motivates you to stay fit and active.
And more in the future:
- Attach video tutorials to moves in the collection.
- Combine moves to choreographies. Learn them with an interactive audio guide. Share the choreography with friends to practice at home and next time you meet you will be able to dance it together in synchrony.
- Easy video editing with filters and custom 3D models dancing next to you or instead of you.
But never forget: Dancing is physical, not digital. An app will not replace your visit at the dance studio where you meet your friends and sweat alongside them. Bouncy Feet the app works best when you forget that it's even recording you while you dance. Bouncy Feet is designed to be useful to you while minimizing the screen time of you using it.
At its core, Bouncy Feet is an attempt of myself to create a product which people actually want to use. Including myself, as the user number one.
In October 2023, I quit my fulltime job to "work on my own terms" without much of a plan. After a few weeks, this idea of a dance app came to me and I decided to start working on it for the majority of my time, while doing other gigs on the side to keep my personal finances in balance.
It is unclear where this project will end up. But right now, I am convinced the first version of the app will be free for everyone and without adds. It might make sense to add monetization later. But only if this ever turns from a fun project to something that needs to be profitable to put food on the table for me and others. But that is a far dream and too unlikely at this moment to be worth thinking about too much.
Regarding tech, the project uses SvelteKit for everything UI, MediaPipe with pre-trained models for basic pose detection, and Rust (in the browser) for the core business logic (dance detection).
- 3 Apr 2024: Released v0.2.1 to the live demo.
- More steps to the collection, now there are 13 steps.
- Many improvements to drawing, such as z-perspective for limbs, the torso no longer being fixed to the center, and smooth shoulder/hip angles.
- 19 Mar 2024: Created live demo with more stable features to https://app.bouncy-feet.ch.
- 26 Dec 2023: Started hosting a live demo on https://demos.jakobmeier.ch/bouncy-feet.
- 23 Dec 2023: Update README to better describe the project ambitions. The techstack with SvelteKit + Rust to create a PWA is mostly locked in now.
- 20 Nov 2023: Started using SvelteKit.
- 18 Nov 2023: Initialized repository under the name
bouncy-feet. - Oct - Nov 2023: Tried out the core concepts in a prototype.
I am a strong proponent of open-source software for two main reasons.
- I personally love it when I am able to look at the source code of software I use. It can be a great learning experience to look at real code and the process of how that code came to be.
- I admire the community aspect of successful open-source projects. People use it to learn and practice their favorite technologies beyond what would be possible at a day-to-day job. This is the perfect counterweight to big cooperations in the software space.
With this mindset, I want this project to be as open and welcoming as possible. Even in the unlikely event where I want to monetize some form of Bouncy Feet, I would still want to keep all the source code free and open-source. I would want to monetize the content inside the app (think dance courses), if anything. But access to the software itself should always remain free.
This project is developed under permissive licenses. You may freely reuse the code for your own projects. If you do, I would love to hear about it. Open an issue, say hello and describe your project. Or drop me a private message. Of course, there is no obligation to do so but I would appreciate it.
For exact licensing details, please refer to the license files. There are multiple licenses available to choose from, just to give you more options and have this code fit better in your project. If you find the licenses available unsuitable for your project, please open an issue.
The current status is source available without proper documentation that would be necessary to encourage a wider community to contribute. Hopefully, this will improve over time. But if the lack of documentation does not bother you, I am happy to answer pull requests and issues if you open them.
If you are interested in helping out by implementing features, the first place to look is the list of issues with contribution encouraged. These are typically long-term features which I know I want in the app eventually but I don't have the capacity to work on them right now. If you want to work on them, I will give my best to help you help me and make it a pleasant collaboration experience for both of us.
But the list of issues is never complete and there are certainly other ways to contribute, too. If you are interested in getting involved but don't see an issue that suits you, please drop me a quick message at inbox@jakobmeier.ch and describe your level of experience with Rust/Svelte and let me know what kind of contribution interests you.
I myself have decent experience using Rust and can also mentor you a bit on your journey learning it if that's what you are looking for. But with Svelte, I am very new and could probably use some mentoring by you. :P Or we can learn it side by side, you don't need to be professional with Svelte to contribute.
Oh and there are certainly non-technical ways to contribute, too! If you want to help out with the dance content, or with translations, or something else, please drop me a message inbox@jakobmeier.ch and I am more than happy to discuss further.