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Laser cutting the box
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Prototyping wooden box and final acryllic box
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Box with electronics
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Arduino IDE and Phone interface
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Torso worn heartbeat sensor
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Laser cutting/CAD layout file
Inspiration
In our increasingly aging society, many of us have aging loved ones who we are unable to constantly stay by their side and support because of our busy lives. We would love to have a way to help support our elderly remotely, and our project does just that by ensuring their safety with our notification system. Never miss out on the golden response time to help save our loved ones from accidents.
What it does
Our Granny Fall device helps warn users when it has detected a potentially fatal fall from an elderly loved one. There are two conditions that must be met to trigger the warning: A fall of enough severity to trip our accelerometer threshold, and a drop in heartbeat low enough indicating a coma. This helps narrow down the warnings to only falls that result in unconsciousness rather than a less severe one.
How we built it
We used an Arduino 101 as our microcontroller in charge of all the data collection and processing. Built into the Arduino 101 is an accelerometer and bluetooth functionality, which we use to transmit the warning when needed. There is a Polar T34 transmitter attached to the Arduino 101 as a wireless receptor for a separate heartbeat sensor worn on the torso. The entire electronic package (excluding the torso worn heartbeat sensor) was packaged into a laser cut acryllic box with straps to be worn on the arm.
Challenges we ran into
The Arduino 101 we initially used just decided to stop working for no reason and we had to switch out one of the boards. The bluetooth functionality on the Arduino 101 is a lot more obscure and harder to use than an external module such as the HC-05 or ESP32, but we stuck with it since it is a great space saver for a device meant to be worn. It is difficult to find a threshold for the accelerometer that would accurately detect actual falls without triggering accidentally, especially when trying to demo the product. Finally, our heartbeat sensor worn on the torso proved to be very inconsistent and unreliable. We had to do a lot of callibration in our code to adjust for the variation in its measurement accuracy.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
We're proud that we were able to get the torso worn heartbeat sensors that no other group used because they were so terrible to give us somewhat decent results with our design. We're also proud about figuring out how to use the Arduino 101's builtin bluetooth functionality that was very difficult to figure out.
What we learned
We learned about working with the Arduino 101, how unreliable torso worn heartbeat monitors are, sensor callibration, CAD & laser cutting, and the importance of comfort in a product. We also learned that falling onto solid ground is extremely painful, even if you fell purposely and that getting a good demo video is like filming a mini advertisement.
What's next for Granny Fall
To further expand on our project, we could perhaps switch to more reliable heartbeat sensors that are also easier to wear, such as pulse sensors for the wrist so that we can further reduce the size of the electronic box to be worn on the arm. In addition, we would work on the communication system so that after the phone receives the warning from the device, it could then forward the warning to other devices, perhaps automatically calling or emailing a list of trusted people.
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