SafeSteps

Empowering UW-Madison students to navigate campus safely with real-time incident reports and a community dashboard, plus future plans for smart route recommendations prioritizing safety.

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Inspiration

Campus safety is a crucial concern for students, especially when moving around campus alone or after hours. We wanted to create a tool that empowers students to report incidents in real time, fostering a sense of community vigilance. SafeSteps was inspired by the need for students to stay informed about safety-related incidents around campus, providing an accessible platform to report and monitor campus safety.

What it does

SafeSteps is a reporting and monitoring tool designed to enhance campus safety. The app allows students to:

  • Report Incidents: Students can easily report incidents or suspicious activity they observe on campus, contributing to a shared awareness among the student body.
  • View Reports Dashboard: A central dashboard lists all recent reports submitted by students, enabling users to stay informed about potential risks and high-activity areas on campus.

This simple but effective tool helps keep the campus community informed and vigilant by making safety information more accessible.

How we built it

We built SafeSteps using React Native for the mobile frontend, which enables cross-platform support on iOS and Android. Here’s an overview of our tech stack:

  • Frontend: Developed with React Native and TypeScript to create a simple and intuitive interface for reporting incidents.
  • Backend: We used AWS Amplify to manage authentication and store incident reports in real time, leveraging AWS’s cloud capabilities for scalability.
  • Dashboard: A straightforward list-style dashboard displays recent incident reports, giving students an at-a-glance view of safety-related activity on campus.

Challenges we ran into

  • Data Sync for Real-Time Reports: Managing real-time data synchronization for reports was challenging, especially while ensuring that the dashboard accurately reflects recent activity.
  • User Experience Design: Designing an easy-to-use interface that encourages students to report incidents while keeping the dashboard clear and navigable required thoughtful planning and iterations.
  • Authentication: Setting up secure and reliable authentication with AWS Amplify took time, as we needed to ensure only verified users could report incidents.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

  • Working MVP with Real-Time Reporting: We successfully created an MVP that allows students to submit and view incident reports in real time, which was our primary goal for this phase.
  • Simple, Accessible UI: We’re proud of the user-friendly design that makes it easy for students to contribute reports and view recent incidents, fostering a sense of campus-wide safety awareness.
  • AWS Amplify Integration: Successfully integrating AWS Amplify for authentication and data storage helped streamline backend management and focus on the app’s core features.

What we learned

  • React Native Basics: Building SafeSteps with React Native taught us the essentials of cross-platform app development.
  • Using AWS Amplify for Real-Time Data: We gained valuable experience in using AWS Amplify for real-time data handling, which was essential for updating the reports dashboard dynamically.
  • User-Centered Design in Safety Apps: We learned the importance of designing for ease of use, especially in safety apps where quick and accessible reporting is key.

What's next for SafeSteps

  • Enhanced Dashboard Filtering: Add features to filter and categorize reports by type, location, or urgency to make the dashboard more informative.
  • Map-Based Reporting and Safe Route Suggestions: Incorporate a map view to visually display incident locations and allow users to select the safest routes across campus. Think Google Maps, but with an added layer of safety information to ensure students can navigate confidently.
  • Predictive Safety Analysis: Train a machine learning model on past reports to identify patterns and predict the safety of routes at different times of day. This would allow SafeSteps to proactively suggest safe routes and alert users about potentially risky paths before they travel.
  • Notification System: Enable push notifications for recent reports submitted in the user’s vicinity, helping them stay aware of potential safety concerns nearby.
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