Pera

Inspiration

Just as the hackathon was starting, one of our teamates received a call from her grandmother who was in the hospital, and just getting out of surgery. They talked about her grandma's concerns with the chance of being 'put in an assisted living home'. A major concern for all elderly citizens when considering a nursing or assisted living home is the fear of losing their independence. This conversation stuck with that teamate, and mentioned during the brainstorming process. The team decided to try to come up with a new way to address this challenge, by challenging the current way a nursing home is run.

What it does

Every one of us is aging- and someday, we're all going to suffer the harsh effects aging has on our bodies, whether that's losing motor control, hearing, vision, or health. In some elderly citizen's cases, a nursing home or assisted living home is the only option once everyday tasks become too daunting to face on their own anymore. This can come with a harsh realization that one is losing a sense of independence, and this can lead to serious mental problems, such as depression and/or anxiety.

Para is a new system for a nursing home/assisted living home to implement as a way to better the quality of life for the seniors living there. Every resident gets a 'smart band', which is paired with 'activators', located in convenient locations throughout the home. The activators can be used to operate appliances easier, because residents simply have to wave their 'Pera smart band' near an activator, making the interaction completely hands free.

Pera also comes with a multitude of sensors, like many smart watches, that can monitor things like a resident's heart rate, temperature, and sleep patterns, as well as utilize motion sensors to monitor for falls. These statistics can be accessed by the resident's family on an app, and alerted if something were to happen to their loved one. As a bonus, the app also includes interactive elements, such as sending a buzz or a light pattern to their loved one when they press our 'thinking of you' button.

How we built it

We used Adobe to build our prototype. We incorporated RFID and light elements to make our prototypes. We also used Inventor to 3d model and 3d print a case for the prototype. Our wrist band was made with a knitting machine.

Challenges we ran into

We had a hard time settling on an idea. We went back and forth between different ideas, and couldn't seem to settle on one until really late into the competition. We also ran into difficulties with skills that some of our members haven't learned yet, like coding, 3d printing, or using a knitting machine.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We created a working prototype! With an arduino! With lights and it works!

What we learned

We learned how to improve our brainstorming communication. Working in such a diverse group of students, we learned that what makes a team great is not the similarities in thinking, but how our differences complement each other.

What's next for Pera

We hope to fully develop a working prototype for Pera. Our team became very close during the course of the competition, and we would love to see Pera grow into a full business someday.

Built With

• 3dprinting
• arduino
• arduinouno
• c++
• flatbedknittingmachine
• handsewing
• leds
• python