Even in the modern day, the threat of war is imminent for thousands, if not millions, of people around the world. Many citizens may be unaware of dangerous events or areas around them, which is a life-threatening issue. We wanted to create a program to give these people information on where they can go for food, shelter, education, and medical services while simultaneously avoiding areas that have been reported to be dangerous.
Our program is an interactive map that allows users to view the nearest essential services as well as nearby areas that are in imminent danger. We decided to use Toronto, ON, as an example of a city under the threat of war.
Currently, our program displays the nearest hospitals, schools, and grocery stores in the GTA. These markers are colour-coded and, when clicked, will bring up data on these locations, deeming them "unsafe," "neutral," and "safe" based on their proximity to imminent threat zones.
Our program displays several 'imminent threat' zones. These zones are areas with high military occupancy and destroyed infrastructure. Additionally, our program displays 'possible threat' zones. These zones predict potential areas that may be targets for attacks. This includes airports, government buildings, and large highway intersections. These zones are updated in real time based on news as well as user reports.
Using Python, we originally planned to make the map-based application from scratch using a JPEG background of a map and implement sprites as the map pins to view different locations. However, we were able to find a library that pulled a world map and allowed us to interact with it. From there, we were able to create buttons for map markers to display current information.
As computer engineers, we are very well-versed in C/C++, but this language does not offer the large number of features that other higher-level programs do. For ease of use and specific libraries, we decided to work with a relatively unfamiliar language to us: python. This program is the first complete application anyone in this group has done with Python.
Additionally, one of our group members had an emergency and could not attend the hackathon, leaving us with only two active group members. This increased the workload per person significantly, but we managed to organize our team efficiently to work through this program.
We are very proud of the potential of the real-world application of our program. This is a program that can have a massive global impact and may be able to save countless lives.
We are also very proud of our focus and determination to produce the best possible program we can, especially since we are learning a language relatively new to us.
We learned that planning, function creation, and work distribution are paramount to completing a hackathon. With properly organized functions, group members can work independently to create parts of the full program, making collaboration easy. It is also important to acknowledge the strengths and weaknesses of each team member so that they can get assigned work that suits their strengths. Team members
Safety.net has the potential to be used in the real world. After implementing more complex features such as directions (avoiding danger zones), user account creation, admin access, and more user input to report, Safety.net can be used today in countries under the threat of terrorism and war.