Quick and efficient way to contact emergency services, family, and friends during a natural disaster.
https://devpost.com/software/instalert-vetrlf
Inspiration During natural disasters, it is often difficult to quickly communicate with first responders and police departments during a dangerous situation. An automated method of sending authorities all necessary data will make the process much easier and allow for victims to receive aid as fast as possible.
What it does Whenever a natural disaster is imminent, one can contact emergency services via a direct SMS message. One can also create contacts that you can message to say that you are safe from any danger. During the storm, you will be brought to a page that shows you how to be safest during this specific natural disaster and is able to jump around to other pages that show how you should’ve prepared in the beginning and how to prepare for when the storm ends.
How we built it We created one main file and with that created two simple buttons that were both coded as actions to do different things. We created multiple different test files, and after testing different Cocoapods, we were able to implement these specific pods to perform functions we needed. We then kept adding features until it reached our original vision.
Challenges we ran into
- Acquiring the user location using Swift Code
- Sending SMS messages using a Swift module
- Developing an appropriate name for the app that accurately represents all of its various functionalities
- Fully automating the sending of an SMS message using Twilio
- Communicating effectively as a team and sharing files in a way that enables all group members immediate and convenient access to edit them
Accomplishments that we're proud of
- Completely following through on a higher quality app
- Working in an efficient and timely manner
What we learned
- How to create an application using Xcode and Swift
- How to use the cocoapod modules
- How to acquire the location of the user and convert it from coordinate form to a real-world address
- How to allow the user to create a contact which they can contact via SMS or email
- How to conveniently share files using GitHub with our group.
What's next for InstAlert
- Make it so that the user doesn't have to enter an emergency contact
- App automatically parses through a database to find nearest emergency responder and their contact information
- Expand the types of natural disasters that are currently covered in the app
- Use Twilio or another third party service so that the user doesn't have to waste time confirming.