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Framing the Problem

What is the problem you are trying to solve? Who does it affect?

When a building is on fire, firefighters enter environments where visibility is low, layouts are confusing, and communication can break down. This makes it difficult to track their location and ensure their safety. The problem affects firefighters and rescue teams who need real-time awareness to respond quickly and avoid dangerous situations.

Idea Explanation

What is your idea? How does it fix the problem?

Our idea is a wearable tracking system that shows each firefighter’s position in real time on a dashboard. It helps commanders monitor movement and make better decisions during emergencies. By knowing where everyone is, teams can react faster and reduce risks. Also it includes emergency buttons to share about dangerous zones with other firefighters.

Implementation

How do all the pieces fit together? Does your frontend make requests to your backend? Where does your database fit in?

The system has wearable devices that send location data to a base station, which forwards it to a laptop dashboard. The website shows all the information, including emergency signals. The frontend displays positions on a floor plan, while the backend handles incoming data and updates the display in real time.

Challenges

What did you struggle with? How did you overcome it?

We struggled with hardware reliability and long 3D printing times. Some ideas didn’t work as expected, so we had to redesign and test multiple versions until we found a stable solution. Furthermore, we had to abandon our idea of using two nodes communicating to the base as we were unable to to recieive data simultaneously.

Accomplishments

What did you learn? What did you accomplish?

We learned how to integrate hardware and software into one system and troubleshoot real-world issues. We successfully built a working prototype that tracks multiple users in real time.

Next Steps

What are the next steps for your project? How can you improve it?

Next, we want to implement communication between multiple radios and make the wearable design more compact and comfortable for real use.