Burning Man = 3,177 Zamz

I recently returned from the Burning Man Festival, a huge arts and cultural gathering that takes place each year in the Black Rock Desert in Nevada. While there I made an effort to carry my Zamzee with me, both to see how it survived the notoriously difficult conditions (dust storms, 100 degree days, rowdy mock protest marches) and to take a record of how much I moved.

For those of you unfamiliar with Zamzee, it’s a new product researched and developed by HopeLab that will be launching publicly in the fourth quarter of this year. Zamzee is now run as an independent social enterprise, partnering with HopeLab in ongoing research. The  Zamzee meter, a three-axis accelerometer,  records your movement, which powers your online account at zamzee.com.

The activity graph above is from the research version of the Zamzee site, where activity points are referred to as “Zamz.” The graph is a record of my movement from Tuesday August 30  to Monday September 5, which was our pack-down day, and though a lot of work, I wasn’t wearing my Zamzee unfortunately. But you can see how much I got around in the second half of the festival.  On Sunday morning I rode the nearly 10 miles to the far northern reaches of the festival site, and throughout the week I was regularly criss-crossing the desert in search of art and fun and friends.

To my chagrin the double-points day, which happen randomly, fell on my least active day of the festival, Wednesday, when I focused on rest and relaxation. No matter – Zamzee survived the conditions brilliantly and has given me a fantastic snap-shot of my unusually active week.

The commercial version of Zamzee, which is designed specifically for young teens, will be available in the coming months – you can sign up for email alerts at www.zamzee.com to be one of the first to know.

My Zamzee.com Avatar with dog (not allowed at Burning Man).