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Landing Page

Background

How safe is your neighborhood?

Generally, we have a social responsibility to uphold our neighborhood's safety from any suspicious activity. However, it could be difficult to intervene in situations where your help doesn’t feel necessary. This is a prime example of the wicked problem: the bystander effect. There are many factors that influence whether or not a bystander intervenes in a situation. One factor includes people in a large group, like a neighborhood, being less likely to intervene since they assume someone else would help.Only 32.5% of crimes occurring in neighborhoods were reported to authorities in 2019. This low statistic could result from insufficient evidence being presented to law enforcement. So, how do we tackle this issue?

Our goal is to increase the visibility and the amount of evidence for neighborhood incidents that could be useful in investigations. So, we created PawPatrol. This platform is a compilation of evidence from multiple households within the vicinity of the targeted suspicious activity. Households who send in evidence, ranging from videos taken on anything that has a camera to security footage from any provider, would be fulfilling their civic duty as being an upstanding neighbor, just like a "neighborhood watch".

Inspiration

Our team was enticed by the difficulty level of solving a wicked problem. Specifically, we discussed how the bystander effect occurs daily and how it even affects our own lives, whether we are aware or not. We wanted to focus on creating a platform that is impactful for a large community. Our team decided to focus on residential neighborhoods because most households have their own security measures, but sometimes it is insufficient for investigative purposes. Our easily accessible platform allows surrounding households to upload any evidence they may have for a specific incident. This enables incidents to be solved quickly and also promotes a strong, safe community. Additionally, this incentivizes households to be the “neighborhood hero” and inevitably decreases the occurrence of the bystander effect. It’s a win-win for all!

Built Around You!

How it Works

Go to our easily accessible website and report an incident.
A SMS of an incident token will be sent out to your neighborhood.
Motion detection occurs, then another SMS with a link to all reports of an incident will be sent.
Our Incentive Program motivates your neighbors to upload any evidence if applicable.
Access all the compiled footage your fellow neighbors uploaded.
Law Enforcement will be able to easily access all of the evidence to solve incidents quicker.
Keeps the bystander effect at a minimum and makes YOU the Neighborhood Hero 🤩!

User Flow

System Architecture

Challenges

It was incredible to be in a diverse group like ours. We were able to receive knowledge from each other. However, in the beginning, it was challenging to assign different roles, but we decided to use Notion to write the different tasks that needed to be completed. From there, it was more effortless to assign each task.

Planning

We used Notion to list tasks, notes, ideas, and all questions we had. Click HERE for our Notion page.😊

Accomplishments

We were able to implement VerbWire and Estuary while learning new high-level terminology. As beginners, I believe our platform is easily accessible and very witty.

Learning Outcomes

Jesse: This was my first time working with Verbwire. I learned how to create a token and build an application around that.

Ishaan: This was my first time working with Estuary. I learned a lot about InterPlanetary File System and Filecoin. More specifically how they can be used and their implementations. It was also a fun challenge to get Estuary to integrate with the footage from open cv and then work with Verbwire.

Nicole: I was able to work on my front-end skills with the web development of our innovative idea by creating the landing page and this blog. By collaborating with great teammates from different universities, I improved my back-end coding skills to successfully build an application that was voted Most Innovative.

Willow: I have learned Chakra for the UI display of React by doing this project.