Fire Escape

Inspiration

And a realization that University students don't really know what do in safety situations. It's a topic too boring or too worrisome to learn about.

What it does

Fire Escape makes this fun, by gamifying the learning process. Simple arcade games have proven to be insanely popular on campus already, and by combining it with a topic that matters can make the world a better place.

How we built it

From the Sunday to Friday before HackED 2016, we and a friend, Nik Viktorov, built the cabinet for the arcade game. From buying the parts on Sunday to painting the final touches on Friday, we worked approximately 7+ hours a night from 5pm to 12am. Meanwhile, we also planned out the software of the project to use SDL C++.

We planned what everyone would work on in advance and we hit the ground running as soon as the clock struck 12 BeeBee. Using a combination of Cher's Believe and Celine's My Heart Will Go On, we tackled the seemingly impossible task.

Challenges we ran into

The main issue was the massive amount of work required by all members of our group.

What we learned

Sometimes debouncing an interrupt on a button is more work than just using a polling loop. Tiled Parsers suck!

What's next for Fire Escape

Hopefully we'll be able to work with universities to get the game in arcade cabinets around campus. Bringing in a new wave of safety for those on campus.