We designed a wrist bracelet for use in landslide zones to locate survivors.
Tes Idées
Gimnasio Los Caobos began its participation project in the Renault Foundation initiative, YOUR IDEAS YOUR INITIATIVES, investigating and analyzing the country’s main road problems. Currently, the country is undergoing a winter season that has affected more than 10,300 families, causing 360 fatalities and about one hundred disappearances in 168 municipalities, the most serious being in Mocoa and Manizales. Especially in the last five years, Colombia has been affected mainly in Piedemonte, with populations located in vulnerable geographical areas and by the removal of mass natural barriers and landslides on roads and towns. Deforestation and increased rainfall have raised risk levels and, as stated by the Minister of Transportation Jorge Eduardo Rojas, all departments are having difficulties in winter, with landslides of up to 15 thousand cubic meters. Winter seasons have affected more than two million people in the last five years and these figures show a tendency to increase in the coming seasons due to the effects of climate change.
The risk of landslides on populations and roads is increasing, caused by high rainfall, prolonged periods of rain, deforestation and the presence of bodies of water. According to the Institute of Hydrology, Meteorology and Environmental Studies (IDEAM) in May, the municipalities of Cauca, Antioquia, Magdalena, Santander, Córdoba, Nariño, Tolima, Valle del Cauca, Sucre and La Guajira are on high alert.
Secondary and tertiary sources such as books, degree papers, databases, investigative articles, videos, documentaries, among others have been consulted, so that true, reliable and real information were used for an adequate foundation and therefore an effective development of the project.
Most of the people who are trapped by landslides in houses and roads do not survive because they are not rescued in time, which led us to conclude that because of the seriousness of the problem, the inhabitants of greater risk zones must carry a SmartHand product to allow them to be located in the event of a disaster.
The SmartHand is an electronic device designed to locate the victims of any kind of accident and measure their heart rate in order to know if the person is alive or dead. The aim of this is to streamline the process of searching for and rescuing victims.
Tes initiatives
In order to materialize the idea, research was done about the internal components of smart sleeves and smartwatches, evidencing the way in which the technologies that compose them, specifically GPS and heart rate sensors (pulse meters), interact with each other. In order to define and structure the technology, electronic circuits were formed to make SmartHand work properly and fulfill the purposes for which it was created.
Next, ergonomic and comfortable design principles were identified for wearers of the bracelet, bearing in mind that the external materials must be resistant to strong impacts as well as fire and water, and that they should be soft and pleasant for human use. Finally, the design process of both the internal and external components of the case was carried out.
How does it work?
SmartHand was a project carried out considering the geographical and climatic conditions of Colombia. An important point in our project has always been saving human lives in any catastrophe. For this reason, it is necessary to integrate a system capable of communicating the user's state. The integration of the infrared "flow" system was completely vital to our research. This system is similar to the operative methods of many intelligent clocks such as the Apple Watch for measuring beats per minute of heart rate.
The design of the handle will be delivered to the National System for the Prevention and Attention of Disasters, a set of integrated public, private and community entities, with the aim of providing solutions to the security problems of the population presented by their physical environment in the eventual occurrence of natural or anthropic phenomena.
In addition, with a friendly attitude towards the environment we have incorporated a renewable battery with an extended duration. Our project design uses a glass concentrator, taking the energy to a cell that replaces the same battery. The battery uses all kinds of light, whether artificial or natural.
Finally, we needed the case to have an everyday use. It should deal with both natural disasters and provoked accidents, so with this in mind, we concluded that the case had to be resistant to shock, fire, water and air, and it should be visually attractive.
Methodology
To carry out the investigative process in the project we have employed the following phases: When defining what technology to use and the characteristics of both electronic circuit design and external design, virtual models have been created using Rhinoceros software with the help of our parents. The virtual models were made based on our drawn designs. Our plans were designed in pencil with the help of our supervisors. Thanks to the interventions of different engineers, we arrived at the web application, an application created in HTML5 used to check the name, status, identification document and vital state of the user with a link directly from Google maps which shows their exact coordinates.
