Photo from Boulder SWAT team demonstration
Project Update
Our project description remains the same:
“The St. Vrain Valley School District Innovation Center InvenTeam invented the Beacon Rescue Drone (BRD) system to aid first responders in finding missing or trapped persons during natural disasters. It is an independent system that operates without using cell towers. The system consists of three components: a beacon, a drone attachment, and a main station. The beacon is for the general public’s use, with one beacon typically allotted to one household, It is also small enough to be easily held by an average adult with a plug in 9 volt battery. This part of the system is also roughly $150 less than other commercial beacons. Once activated by the homeowner in the event of a disaster, the beacon periodically sends out short-range GPS coordinates to be picked up by the receiver transmitter on the drone attachment. The beacons sends out GPS signals to the drone attachment which transmits a signal to search and rescue crews located at the main station. The station logs the coordinates of each beacon so less time is wasted searching for people and more lives are saved.”
Progress Report
The Month of May revolved around testing and redevelopment. Our main goal was to finish a complete version of our three part system by early May. This left our team able to plan partial and full system testing. One of the advisors that our team contacted was the Boulder County Sheriff's Department, which included the Boulder County Search and Rescue Crews and SWAT team. On May 14, we scheduled to meet with members from the Search and Rescue and SWAT teams lead by SWAT Captain and UAS Program Manager, Stephen Meer. Our intent for this meeting was to record video footage of our full system test for Eureka Fest and further system development. That morning, our team met at Erie High School with the Search and Rescue team members, who brought with them the Boulder Sheriff Mobile Command post, Boulder Emergency Squad SARCOM vehicle, and two Boulder sheriff service vehicles.. We conducted the test by sending off one of our team members with the Baby BRD and attempted to find them with traditional search and rescue techniques taught to us by the crew in tandem with our BRD system’s techniques. During the test, each part of our three part system communicated with each other, but some of our information became jumbled between the components. However, we did gather a lot of video footage of the test to use for EurekaFest. This entire experience of working with real Search and Rescue teams helped our group understand the full implications of our design, and how our technology can help aid current search and rescue techniques and save more lives in the process.
Goals for the EurekaFest
Design
Develop a more efficient components for the system
Reaching out for outside help to fix bugs found in our code during testing
Advance technical skills and radio activity
Prepare materials for shipping to and from EurekaFest
Finance
Ordering brochures & posters
Helping the design team with shipping materials to and from EurekaFest
Sustainability
Implement the Solidworks sustainability program to obtain quantitative data instead of qualitative data
Help the Communications team obtain CAD drawings from Solidworks for presentation
Communications
Create a video demonstration of our project for Lemelson-MIT
Finish organizing our EurekaFest presentation and assigning speaking roles
Making brochures & posters from Vistaprint
Updating social media
Add final updates to our team website