Inspiration
One of the most important roles in our current society is the one taken by the varying first responders who ensure the safety of the public through many different means. Innovation which could help these first responders would always be favourable for society as it would follow from this innovation that more lives are saved through a more efficient approach by first responders to save lives.
What it does
The Watchdog app is a map which allows registered users to share locations of events which would be important to first responders. These events could have taken place at any time, as the purpose for them varies for the different first responders. For example, if many people report fires then from looking at the map, regardless of when these fires took place, firefighters can locate building complexes which might be prone to fire for some particular reason. It may be that firefighters can find where to pay more attention to as there would be a higher probability for these locations to have fires statistically. This app does not only help firefighters with these statistics, but also the police and paramedics. With reporting of petty crimes such as theft, police can find neighbourhoods where there is a statistical accumulation and focus resources there to improve efficiency. The same would go for paramedics for varying types of accidents which could occur from dangerous jobs such as construction, and paramedics would be more prepared for certain locations. Major cities have many delays due to accidents or other hindrances to travel and these delays are usually unavoidable and a nuisance to city travelers, so the app could also help typical citizens.
How we built it
The app was built using MongoDB, Express, and Node on the backend to manage the uploading of all reports added to the MongoDB database. React was used on the front end along with Google Cloud to generate the map using Google Maps API which the user can interact with, by adding their reports and viewing other reports.
Challenges we ran into
Our challenges mostly involved working with Google Maps API as doing so in React was new for all of us. Issues arose when trying to make the map interactable and using the map's features to add locations to the database, as we never worked with the map like this before. However, these challenges were overcome by learning the Google Maps documentation as well as we could, and ensuring that the features we wanted were added even if they were still simple.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
We're mostly proud of coming up with an idea that we believe could have a strong impact in the world when it comes to helping lives and being efficient with the limited time that first responders have. Technically, accomplishments with being able to make the map interactive despite limited experience with Google Maps API was something that we're proud of as well.
What we learned
We learned how to work with React and Google Maps API together, along with how to move data from interactive maps like that to an online database in MongoDB.
What's next for Watchdog
Watchdog can add features when it comes to creating reports. Features could vary, such as pictures of the incident or whether first responders were successful in preventing these incidents. The app is already published online so it can be used by people, and a main goal would be to make a mobile version so that more people could use it, even though it can be used by people right now.
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