SOS WMN is a team of young innovators with the goal of creating an easy-to-use security device to protect women from gender-based crime & violence in public. This IoT device will send a distress, SOS alert message to the user's emergency contact as an email and/or text message. The device will be concealed in a wearable case that can be conveniently worn on various parts of the user's body to adjust for the type of clothing worn in any given situation.
Background
Women are a vulnerable group of the population when sexual crimes or gender violence acts occur. In 2018, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported that approximately “1 in 3, or 30%, of women worldwide have suffered physical and/or sexual violence by an intimate partner or non-partner sexual violence, or both.” The high rates of these incidences affect the physical and emotional integrity of women. We live in a period of history in which women are still being affected by a culture of abuse and sexism in countries like Mexico and the U.S, and the laws and the judiciary system meant to protect everyone’s rights in many cases are not sufficient. In 2020, the national statistics agency, INEGI, reported that “two-thirds of women in Mexico (had) faced some form of violence, including 44% of women who suffered abuse from a close partner.” Therefore, we devised our own proposal for a solution to this issue: an SOS WMN device, which is a proposal that seeks to develop a discreet alarm device to help women evade dangerous harassment situations and obtain help from authorities and emergency contacts.
SOS WMN is a team from Make: Learning Labs program (https://learn.make.co/). We would like to conduct interviews of victims and survivors of physical harassment. If you can connect us with women that experienced these types of crimes against women, that would help us to understand the issue that we want to address. We are looking to have respectful and confidential conversations with them. Would you be able to help us or know who can help us? If you are interested, please contact our team at brian.mustaf@gmail.com. We would appreciate this opportunity to learn about your story. Please let us know if you have any questions.
Solution proposal
SOS WMN is a team from the Make: Learning Labs program. Our proposal is called SOS WMN device, which is a proposal that seeks to develop a discreet personal alarm device to help women evade dangerous harassment situations and obtain help from authorities and emergency contacts. The emergency device will be attached to the user's clothes.
User
Our user: Women that are at risk to experience gender-based violence, specifically physical harassment and assault.
Survey and interviews
SOS harrasment survey responses PP:
Regina's interview:
Kiana Fuentes interview:
Elizabeth Urriza interview:
Electronic materials
1. TTGO ESP32 SIM 800L
2. GPS GT Module
3. Battery 4.7-3.7V, 1100 mah
4. ESP32 AI THINKER CAM Module
5. ESP32 WROOM 2D/Arduino UNO(Camera transmitter).
6. Push button
7. Resistor (330-10kΩ)
8. Jumper wires
9. ON/OFF switch
10. Breadboards
Prototype
Protocol activation
How we activate the emergency protocol? Our user needs to press one button for all the features display. For dangerous situations, we need to have a response in less than five seconds if we want to activate any protocol (911 call, panic button activation, self-defense first step). SOS WMN device only requires one step to activate the alert; is easy and quick for the user to manage the system activation.
Protocol activation video:
Pressing button video:
SMS Messages
The SMS messages are activated after pressing our ON button. When the protocol is released, our master board (using the SIM 800L board) will start sending SMS texts to the designated emergency contact(S) each minute. The conditions for the application of this feature are:
2G Connectivity allowed (Country accessibility).
SIM card.
Mobile data to send SMS and share hotspot with the camera.
This board allows making calls using the board and SIM card number (in this project, this feature isn't developed).
Test button SMS mess
Device cases
We wanted to make a case that is resistant, durable, waterproof and in which the devices can be easily removed as well as to check if there is any damage to them.
For the cases, we used the following materials:
Waterproof nylon fabric with sharks
Waterproof black silver polyester fabric
Velcro tapes
Black thread
Backpack snaps
Elastic fabric ribbons 3 cm wide
It was hand sewn, for the interior there were 2 layers of polyester and for the exterior 1 of nylon since this fabric is soft to the touch of the skin.
Since there were two cases, one is for the camera battery and the other for the GPS and ttgo modules and its own battery, and the latter is big enough that the camera battery will also fit.
Holes were made in the covers so that they can be changed Elastic fabric tapes depending on how the user wants to wear them and their measurements.
It should be noted the many ways that these covers can be worn, whether on the leg in case the user wears a dress, arm, waist, hip, wearing it on the belt thanks to the velcro strap on the back. Or if not, they can also be carried in bags, coats and hold the camera and activation button with their cables covered with a safety pin in the clothes
Email camera
This feature starts working right after the user activates the protocol. The master board sends data to the camera when the ESP-NOW communication is pairing both boards. After receiving the string value "ON" (means the protocol is activated), the camera is going to start taking pictures between 10 sec. interval and also sends those pictures via email to the emergency contact(s) designed.
In this project, the wearable proposals used for testing this feature were a football keychain and a hat.
GPS (Mexico solution)
The GPS feature development was the biggest challenge for the SOS team. Mexican peers had a lot of issues working with the GTU7 GPS module. The basic explanation for this problem is that in Mexico, the satellites recognized by the GPS module weren't enough to map the module location. We could run a successful trial receiving data from the GPS. Suddenly, the module stopped receiving data and after this trial, we couldn't reach satellite connection again. This feature works only in U.S.A prototype.
As an alternative, the team decided to use the Geolocation API from Google Maps to obtain the location using our private network, close hotspots, and mobile towers. The results from this trial were discouraging. We obtained a 0 value in coordinates labels (latitude and longitude). The accuracy level of the trial was very high. Checking and browsing in the troubleshooting guide from the API we found that having these values in the accuracy label, represented that the MAC addresses from the hotspots and close network weren't recognized as valid for the API connection.
The addition of the GPS feature for the prototype in Mexico is the development of an application that uses the user cellphone GPS to share the location via SMS. We used MIT App Inventor to develop the interface. With this application, the user is able to control location sharing by pressing a button in the app.The conditions for using the app are:
Having the application installed in the cellphone.
Data mobile access to send SMS texts.
GPS activated
Manual activation of the SMS message. (Click a button).
GPS Mexico success trial video:
GPS app video:
Codes
Master TTGO ESP32 code. The code was uploaded on the TTGO ESP32 board. Features added: Push-button reading (PIN:2). Text messages code, ESP NOW sender code(communication and send data to the esp32 CAM).
Slave Camera code/Mac address code. The code allows receiving data from the master device (TTGO ESP32 SIM800L) Takes pictures using the camera AI THINKER and sends an email with a photo attached, using email. Before running the slave code, the Mac address code must be uploaded to the camera to obtain the camera mac address. This data is added to the master code to establish ESP-NOW communication between both boards (TTGO, ESP32 CAM).
ESP32 TTGO SIM 800L code
ESP32 CAM (SMS photos/email and TTGO slave code)
Testing and feedback from users.
Simulation of situation.
Testing#1
Feedback from Esperanza García
User feedback1
Second user testing
User testing 2
Feedback from Lucía Graciano (Spanish-translation in progress).
User feedback 2
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