Child's CLOUD

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Inspiration

One of our teammates had a little brother who’s heartbeat stopped in the middle of the night causing a seizure. Luckily, his mother randomly woke up and was able to save the baby’s life by rushing him to the hospital. Our teammate's story inspired us to design a type of sleepwear that could monitor the baby’s important vitals so that all babies can see the daylight in the morning.

What it does

Our project, Child’s CLOUD, is a onesie fitted for babies that monitors the room temperature, heart rate, and sudden movements that could be fatal to the child when sleeping. The room temperature monitor checks the ambient room temperature to ensure adequate sleeping requirements for babies, which is 68℉ - 72℉. When the temperature is slightly out of that range the module blinks yellow, warning the parent. If the temperature is in dangerous sleeping conditions the module blinks red indicating to the parent that they should either cool down/heat up the room or find another sleeping location for the child. When the heartbeat sensor notices that it's out of range of a safe heartbeat it gives off a vocal message of “danger” repeating until the module is pressed letting the parent know that the baby needs medical assistance. Lastly, we addressed the fatal movements such as the baby turning in an awkward position. When a baby is not on its back, the module lights up blue and gives off the message of “danger” until assistance arrives to assist the child and correct the sleeping position.

How we built it

To build our project, we used AdaFruit’s Circuit Playground Express to leverage the accelerometer, LED lights, speaker, and temperature sensors which are integrated in the board. We then hooked the heartbeat sensor to the board, which allowed all of our sensors to work together. Using Arduino C, we built all of our code to make the sensors work in as a cohesive device.

Challenges we ran into

Our original idea was to use a Bluetooth module to send the sensor data to an app that analyzes it and sends notifications to the parent to update them when attention is needed. Our first challenge was a lack of Bluetooth modules available, so we went to work with WiFi. Sadly the WiFi shields that were available weren't compatible with the sensors we needed. We spent countless hours trying to find any hacks that would allow two different systems to work together to get us online, but after 100s of Google Chrome tabs we were unable to locate resources to help link them together. We then decided to leverage to the LEDs on the playground express board to represent when a baby is unsafe. Our next big challenge was the heartbeat sensor. We spent countless hours on trying to get the system to find and calculate a pulse. After searching the code library, along with using the sensor on several additional boards, we were unable to get it to work. We finally decided to take it to the TechStyles Lab, which determined that we had a faulty device. We spent a lot of time on hardware problems that should have been more plug and play. Overall we are happy that with all of our complications that we have a final product that follows our original idea.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud to have a final product that is based on our original idea, even with the faulty sensors and lack of supplies to make our idea come to life. We are also proud of how well we worked together and used our individual skills to really bring the best out of each other.

What we learned

We all learned a lot about Arduino and all the sensors that are available. In fact, because of this, we have been inspired to do further personal projects with the new skills we have learned throughout this event. Although, the most important takeaway from our experience is learning the skills that our team members brought to the table. The last 36 hours have brought the best out of us and really highlighted what everyone is capable of achieving.

What's next for your project

We have a lot planned for our project in the future. We plan on getting a Bluetooth module, which we were unable access to this weekend, to be able to send our data to an app to allow for notifications. We also plan on adding several features that could further better the baby’s sleep, along with gathering medical data to better understand how to care for your baby. We would like to implement a small speaker to play a “heartbeat” sound to put your baby to sleep more easily. On top of that, we would like to record data on heartbeat, sweat, temperature and the baby’s cry. We could then use a machine learning algorithm to predict why the baby is crying which would allow parents to take better care of their child. We could use all this data and export it into simplified file which could be sent to a pediatrician. This would enable them to better watch out for irregularities and watch for any diseases or illnesses. The possibilities are endless with the amount of health API’s that are now available and we would love to see how much we can accomplish to make sure every child has the best care possible.