## Inspiration

The California wildfires have proven how deadly fires can be; the mere smoke from fireworks can set ablaze hundreds of acres. What starts as a few sparks can easily become the ignition for a fire capable of destroying homes and habitats. California is just one example; fires can be just as dangerous in other parts of the world, even if not as often.

Approximately 300,000 were affected by fires and 14 million people were affected by floods last year in the US alone. These numbers will continue to rise, due to issues such as climate change.

Preventative equipment and forecasting is only half of the solution; the other half is education. People should be able to navigate any situation they may encounter. However, there are inherent shortcomings in the traditional teaching approach, and our game -S.O.S. - looks to bridge that gap by mixing fun and education.

## What it does

S.O.S. is a first-person story mode game that allows the player to choose between two scenarios: a home fire, or a flooded car. Players will be presented with multiple options designed to either help get the player out of the situation unscathed or impede their escape. For example, players may choose between breaking open car windows in a flood or waiting inside for help, based on their experience and knowledge.

Through trial and error and "bulletin boards" of info gathered from national institutions, players will be able to learn about fire and flood safety. We hope to make learning safety rules fun and engaging, straying from conventional teaching methods to create an overall pleasant experience and ultimately, save lives.

## How we built it

The game was built using C#, Unity, and Blender. Some open resource models were downloaded and, if needed, textured in Blender. These models were then imported into Unity, which was then laid out using ProBuilder and ProGrids. Afterward, C# code was written using the built-in Visual Studio IDE of Unity.

## Challenges we ran into

Some challenges we ran into include learning how to use Unity and code in C# as well as texture models in Blender and Unity itself. We ran into problems such as models not having the right textures or the wrong UV maps, so one of our biggest challenges was troubleshooting all of these problems. Furthermore, the C# code proved to be a challenge, especially with buttons and the physics component of Unity. Time was the biggest challenge of all, forcing us to cut down on our initial idea.

## Accomplishments that we're proud of

There are many accomplishments we as a team are proud of in this hackathon. Overall, our group has become much more adept with 3D software and coding.

## What we learned

We expanded our knowledge of making games in Unity, coding in C#, and modeling in Blender.

## What's next for SOS; Saving Our Souls

Next, we plan to improve the appearance of our game. The maps, lighting, and animation could use some work. Furthermore, more scenarios can be added, such as a Covid-19 scenario which we had initially planned.
## Inspiration

Between 1994 and 2013 there were 6,873 natural disasters worldwide, which claimed 1.35 million lives or almost 68,000 lives on average each year. In many of these disasters, people don't know where to go, and where is safe. For example, during Hurricane Harvey, many people learned about dangers such as alligators or flooding through other other people, and through social media.

## What it does

* Post a natural disaster hazard in your area
* Crowd-sourced hazards
* Pulls government severe weather data
* IoT sensor system to take atmospheric measurements and display on map
* Twitter social media feed of trending natural disasters in the area
* Machine learning image processing to analyze posted images of natural disaster hazards

Our app **Eye in the Sky** allows users to post about various natural disaster hazards at their location, upload a photo, and share a description of the hazard. These points are crowd-sourced and displayed on a map, which also pulls live data from the web on natural disasters. It also allows these users to view a Twitter feed of current trending information on the natural disaster in their location. The last feature is the IoT sensor system, which take measurements about the environment in real time and displays them on the map.

## How I built it

We built this app using Android Studio. Our user-created posts are hosted on a Parse database (run with mongodb). We pull data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration severe weather data inventory. We used Particle Electron to collect atmospheric sensor data, and used AWS to store this data in a JSON.

## Challenges I ran into

We had some issues setting up an AWS instance to run our image processing on the backend, but other than that, decently smooth sailing.

## Accomplishments that I'm proud of

We were able to work really well together, using everyone's strengths as well as combining the pieces into a cohesive app that we're really proud of. Everyone's piece was integrated well into the app, and I think we demonstrated good software collaboration.

## What I learned

We learned how to effectively combine our code across various languages and databases, which is a big challenge in software as a whole. We learned Android Development, how to set up AWS, and how to create databases to store custom data. Most importantly, we learned to have fun!

## What's next for Eye in the Sky

In the future, we would like to add verification of people's self-reported hazards (through machine learning and through up-voting and down-voting)
We would also like to improve the efficiency of our app and reduce reliance on network because there might not be network, or very poor network, in a natural disaster
We would like to add more datasets from online, and to display storms with bigger bubbles, rather than just points
We would also like to attach our sensor to drones or automobiles to gather more weather data points to display on our map
## Inspiration

Several presentations at our school about raising awareness of mental health encouraged us to create this project.

## What it does

Through entertaining and encouraging messages delivered utilizing a visual short story, our project raises awareness about mental health, particularly depression.

## How we built it

First we brainstormed ideas on how the style of the visual short story will look like. After deciding on a minimalistic/cartoon art style, we began designing the story. We wanted an engaging and meaningful message while keeping the story short. After creating the outline of the story, we began adding dialogue and appropriate music to the game. But in order to make a really strong point, we also incorporated an emotive poem by Alex Elle that was relevant to our message at the conclusion of the game.
We initially designed this story using java but we ran into many problems, specifically packaging executables, so we decided to switch to unity; a software that, although we had no clue how to utilize, was effective for creating games. We split up into parts to create parts of the game, ex: someone worked on the main menu, while someone writes code for the game or creates the images for the character. We used paint.net to create the characters and C# as the programming language.

## Challenges we ran into

During these chaotic 36 hours, we had to overcome a number of challenges. Learning new pieces of software and languages, and working together to learn while viewing several tutorials was our biggest obstacle. We had never used C#, Paint.NET, or unity before, but we were determined to push ourselves and do something fantastic. Another problem we had was writing the story since we wanted to capture the player's attention and convey a meaningful message in a short period. The game is a lot shorter than we wanted it to be and that is mainly due to time constraints in addition to technical issues.

## Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud of finishing the game considering we had no prior experience in all the resources we used. We are also pleased that we were able to create something that can help others and make an impact in people's lives.

## What we learned

We learned something very important during this hackathon. In order to make the most of our time, we learnt how to acquire new things quickly and then share that knowledge with one another. This hackathon especially helped us gauge how much we can realistically complete in a short timespan.

## What's next for Talk To Me

Talk to Me will continue to spread awareness and educate people about the serious dangers of depression and mental health. We advocate individuals to ask for assistance when necessary and check in on loved ones. Given the framework we created for ourselves. Adding more content to the game would be incredibly easy, which means it is very possible we could expand this to a full proper game.