HavenLink

Inspiration

As all three of us are from China, we were particularly inspired by a recent technological initiative implemented in major cities. This initiative focuses on assisting elderly individuals in navigating the digital landscape for taxi calling services. In China, nearly all taxi services have transitioned to online platforms, which poses significant challenges for seniors who may struggle with digital technology and accessing information online. This experience highlighted for me the critical importance of cities integrating devices and services that cater to diverse needs and bridge the technological gap.

What it does

In this context, we turned our attention to the issue of homelessness, which presents its own set of challenges. Many homeless individuals face significant difficulties in accessing essential resources, often exacerbated by limited or no internet connectivity. Without easy access to information about shelters, food banks, and healthcare services, they are left isolated and without the support they need. Our goal is to address this gap by developing solutions that provide essential information and assistance to vulnerable populations, ensuring that everyone can access the resources necessary for their well-being.

Moreover, this device is not limited to homeless individuals; it serves as a new initiative within our infrastructure, providing support to a wider range of people. By acting as a community resource hub, the device can assist those facing various challenges, such as low-income families, individuals experiencing temporary hardships, or those seeking information about local services. It fosters a sense of inclusivity by ensuring that everyone, regardless of their circumstances, has access to vital resources. The integration of a voice model allows users to interact easily with the device, making it more user-friendly for individuals who may not be comfortable with technology. This initiative aims to create a more connected and supportive community, enhancing the overall quality of life for all residents.

How we built it

Because we do not possess an actual IoT device, we decided to use a website to model the IoT device placed around the city. The website will serve as an interactive platform for users seeking assistance. Upon entering the homepage, users will encounter an integrated voice model that allows them to speak directly to the device regarding their needs. The voice model will categorize the request and guide users to the appropriate resources they are looking for. To enhance accessibility, the website will also offer a text-to-speech option for users who may have difficulty reading or prefer auditory information.

Additionally, users will have the option to click into one of six predefined categories, each representing a specific type of assistance, such as shelters, food banks, healthcare services, mental health support, addiction resources, and emergency services, weather, and AI chatbox. This structure ensures that users can quickly and efficiently find the help they need while navigating the challenges associated with homelessness or other hardships.

The shelter button will provide users with information on the three nearest homeless shelters, including their addresses and a Google map for easy navigation. Similarly, the food bank button will list food bank locations along with relevant details. The emergency calling service and health support will allow users to directly dial the appropriate phone numbers. Additionally, the weather function will prompt users to enter a specific ZIP code and return a week's worth of weather advice. For any further inquiries or emotional support, users can engage with an AI chatbot for assistance.

By modeling the IoT device through this website, we aim to create a user-friendly and efficient resource that fosters greater accessibility and support for all community members.

Challenges we ran into

Since this was our first time participating in a hackathon, and it was also the first experience for all three of us in building a full-stack working project, we faced numerous challenges along the way. Our lack of familiarity with front-end and back-end development, various frameworks, and API calls made the process particularly daunting. We often found ourselves troubleshooting issues that arose from our inexperience, which slowed down our progress.

Moreover, we struggled at first to identify the project we actually wanted to pursue. The brainstorming sessions were filled with great ideas, but we had difficulty narrowing them down to one cohesive concept that we felt passionate about and could realistically execute within the time constraints of the hackathon. This uncertainty added to our initial frustration, but it also provided an opportunity for us to collaborate more closely and learn from one another as we explored different possibilities.

As the hackathon progressed, we gradually gained confidence in our abilities and started to enjoy the process. We learned to leverage our individual strengths, and despite the setbacks, we remained committed to pushing through the challenges together. Overall, this experience taught us valuable lessons about teamwork, adaptability, and problem-solving, which we hope to apply in future projects!

Accomplishments that we're proud of

As a team of three whose members have a) never collaborated together on any major programming tasks and b) have varying levels of experience and familiarity with different languages, we are proud that we were able to come up with a functional website integrating technologies that were, for the most part, new to us. Additionally, we believe that what we have created can help mitigate the societal issue of homelessness. Although we only have a demo, we believe that the core idea that our project follows can benefit society.

What we learned

First and foremost, working as a team isn't easy, especially with members with different levels of experience and language preferences. Additionally, we learned (the hard way) that version control is a) extremely important and b) extremely easy to mess up when you don't know exactly what you're doing. Lastly, while this experience has taught us that while not all things will follow ideally according to plan due to a variety of factors, we can still build innovative and impactful projects if we put our minds to it.

What's next for HavenLink

We plan on perfecting our current set of features - extending language support to more than just English for speech, adding a TTS service (was WIP but didn't have time to finish) for the visually impaired, expanding and improving our databases from a simple mock to a real database etc. Additionally, since the project was intended for real devices on the streets, we have plans to refactor the project into a suitable format for a larger scale as well as server-edge device communications, and actually implement the devices. All in all, the future holds much potential, and we will be looking to improve our project to better serve the community.