We have now started honing in on our ideas for the capstone project, and are completing the initial research phase of our project with first-responder communication systems.
Even though we have only been working for a number of weeks, we have already encountered a couple of challenges. First, narrowing down the issue we wanted to solve was difficult. We knew that we wanted to work within the realm of climate change, but didn't know exactly where to look. Since the Australia wildfires were in full force at the time, both literally and in the media, we were inspired to work with firefighters to make their work more efficient. Initially, we thought to work with drones for assisting with firefighting, but our interests later moved toward the medical and human-response aspects of disaster control. We then thought to try to redesign the seemingly outdated system of triage, but realized that these sorts of time-tested solutions are difficult and touchy to work with. So, finally, we have decided to redesign another almost universally used product - the Motorola radio. We know the product we want to work with, but have found difficulty in narrowing down the exact issue that we want to solve. Few online resources are available on the topic of Motorola radios, so we must instead discuss directly with first-responders to find out exactly what aspects of the current system is failing them. Despite the lack of resources on the internet, though, we've learned just how crucial it is to learn the literature that is available. Academic literature allows us to discover the finance, industry, and policies behind emergency response and product development, because ultimately we too are the ones in the background. In this project, our goal is to vocalize a public service that doesn't often get a say in distant industries like radio development.
I am proud to be working on a solution that is designed solely to save as many lives as possible, both human and animal.