GLAAS (Gear Location And Avoidance System)

Inspiration

We felt that the sustainability of marine ecosystems for biodiversity and sustenance was an issue that needed to be addressed.

What Does it Do

Our system tracks the location of deployed lobster traps and displays it to the fisher. A heat map is also generated helping tourist boats and other vessels avoid cutting the lines of the traps. Additionally, we propose a hardware level integration that will allow "lost" lobster traps to float to the surface, sending out its GPS location to allow it to be retrieved.

How we built it

We decided to adopt an unconventional approach for this project. The problem asked for only an application but we took it one step further and brainstormed a hardware solution to it as well. The software solution is built using ruby on rails. As for the hardware, we developed a system that can sense if the rope has been cut. Once the system senses that the rope is cut, an inflatable will be activated and the trap would float to the surface and emit a GPS signal, allowing us to track the location of the trap and retrieve it.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We developed an intuitive user interface for both fishermen and the general public. Our unique solution also provides overlays of heatmaps that are intelligently fused to highlight danger areas. We took it a step further and built a hardware solution to retrive traps that are at the bottom of the sea. This way, fishermen no longer have to use the grapnel to comb the sea for such traps, wasting time and fuel in the process.

What we learned

We would never have realized the fishing problems that world faces today. The fishackathon was a great opportunity for us to realize these challenges and give a shot at coming up with an innovative solution to solve a pressing problem. We learnt that the requirements of the problem was simply an application, but as good product designers, we did a thorough customer analysis and brainstormed all possibilities that our customer might want. We did not allow the boundaries of the problem to constrain us and we were glad that we came up with a robust solution that solves the problem thoroughly.

What's next for GLAAS (Gear Location And Avoidance System)

We envision this product to be implemented in seas all over the world. We will first focus on implementing this in the Bay of Fundy. From there, we will prove that it works and significantly reduces the number of ghost gear in that area. We will then take it a step further and attach our hardware GPS and flotation device on nets, and other fishing gear that are regularly lost out at sea.

Having proved that this works, we will expand globally and tag every single fishing gear in every part of the world, hence having a global system that tracks all fishing gear. This makes recovery an extremely simple process of opening an app and finding the lost gear.