This week marks the beginning of prototyping and the road to the SDLR. Our team’s main focus is configuring an Arduino Nano 33 IoT module to show basic functionality, which just arrived today (Friday, October 24th). Now we can finally start to see our product come to life. 

Another big area of concern for the team currently has been communication with Team 6. Since we need to have all workers’ devices capable of turning on, connecting to Team 6’s device, and receiving a signal from them to sound the alarm, solving the puzzle of how to ensure their signal can reach all of our devices while keeping setup time low has been a priority. Wi-Fi may be too much work to set up a network and connect all the devices at each construction stop. Bluetooth would take less time to set up, but the range can be too short for sites that stretch up to a mile.

There are solutions to this. We’re thinking of using a broadcast device and the Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) protocol, which is perfect for IoT devices such as smart home sensors and wearables (like ours!). Essentially, when the Awearable devices are turned on, they begin listening for a broadcast tied to Team 6’s sensors. When the sensor detects a hazard, the broadcast sends an alert, the Awearable devices decrypt the message, and they alert the workers. Broadcasting also helps extend message reach. However, these considerations will matter more later. For now, let’s just get a prototype going.