Inspiration
In the past few years, we have had immense progress in the medical technology field. However, the number of lives saved is never really too much. I wanted to do something in the medical technology field because biology naturally pulls my interest, and I have enough foundational knowledge to connect technology to the physical human part. My original issue was that CPR is not a skill that many people know how to properly do especially when it is a mechanism that can genuinely save the other person's life in the moment.
What it does
This checks the pulse of the wearer and allows another to see their current pulse. For example, if someone with heart problems collapses and I have to do CPR on them, I can see if what I am doing is working to actually help that person. CPR is done when the pulse of a person becomes zero, so artificial pumping is done to keep the blood flowing through the body which generates an artificial pulse. This artificial pulse would be caught with the monitor.
How we built it
I utilized an Arduino system and patched it up with an LCD screen and Raspberry PI pulse sensor.
Challenges we ran into
There were a lot of challenges I ran into. Firstly, when I went to go pick up the microcontroller, they were all out of Raspberry PI and Arduino UNO boards, so they gave me a TI Launchpad. However, when I went to connect it to the IDE, the microcontroller model I had wouldn't show up. After struggling with that for many hours, I borrowed someone's ESP32 microcontroller. However, now I opened the pulse sensor to find that I couldn't use it without soldering which prompted the use of hot glue. Then, I couldn't calibrate it. Many issues, but slowly a lot of them were overcome.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
I did this solo to get the best learning experience, so I learnt a lot through the different troubleshooting methods to get where I wanted to be.
What we learned
I learned a lot, but I know it's just a drop in the bucket for the amount there is to know about the Arduino systems.
What's next for Heart Rate Pulse Sensor
I would make a lot of changes such as making it like a bracelet/watch, calibrating it more accurately, and soldering the wires on instead of hot glue.
Log in or sign up for Devpost to join the conversation.