Product Idea
PyroTamer is a resource management application for firefighters that uses point recording functions and climate attribute overlays to reduce the time it takes for firefighters to organize resources. Over the past decade, large scale wildfires have become a common occurrence around the world, taking many months to contain. Due to the technology industry focusing on profit-seeking products, hands-on community workers like firefighters are generally the last group to benefit from technological innovation. Firefighters have used hand radio for the past half century, and due to their short range and lack of visual cues, miscommunication is a common occurrence and information travels very slowly on the front lines. Our stakeholder, a veteran firefighter, Mr. Rugo, told us that it could take up to 5 hours for planning dispatches and manage resources. PyroTamer’s goal is to reduce that time and save seconds where the lives of many are in danger.
Marketing Plans
Our target market are the fire departments. We plan to launch PyroTamer in 3 Phases. Which will take a total of 6 years. The first phase will be distributing our product to all California Fire Departments. This process will take about a year, and is expected to cost around $26,000 which we plan to seek Government Research Grants such as the Disaster Relief Grant. The 2nd Phase is expected to take 2 years and is focused on spreading PyroTamer throughout America. This is expected to cost around $103,200. The final phase will take 3 years and will be releasing our product globally. The projected cost will be around $1,008,000. The cost for Phase 2 and 3 will be covered mainly by the revenue we get from our product sales. We plan to charge around $1 for each individual using our product.
Technical Solution
PyroTamer’s web app was developed as a proof of concept, however, this application can be used as a more comprehensive program for offsite operators that work outside the firezone. The web app uses 3 main languages, Javascript, HTML, and CSS to make the UI as simplistic and clean as possible while incorporating complex features to assist the firefighters in managing resources. Our application uses the Mapbox API along with documentation from Esri’s map functions and IBM’s better with weather climate functions.
Our application provides a handful of features that firefighters can utilize for quick response and assessment time when fires break out. By using CRUD (create, read, update, and delete), we made a simple latitude and longitude input system and stored the values in a MongoDB database. By using HTML’s built in Geolocation API, we developed a constant position tracking function so firefighters on the frontlines do not have to monitor the app. A small, but essential function is the filter function, which reduces the points so firefighters can choose what types of resources they would like to view.
We have extended our application to the mobile version using react native. It has similar functions as the web app however with the more flexibility with react native, we were able to make some functions more comfortable to use. For example, the user can put the points by just clicking on the screen through the phone.
Community Building
As a group, we understand the importance of reaching out to others for insight and support when building any type of project. In PyroTamer, we created a youtube channel, a website, and a social media account to spread the knowledge of our product and receive the most feedback possible. Some important connections we have created are with Mrs. Phnam Bagely, creative director at Non-fiction, Mr. William Liao, Director of Operation of CTIL, in Indiana University, and a partnership with GoTenna as we discuss possible mesh networking systems with them. In addition to reaching out and establishing relationships with professionals and firefighters, we also wish to spread the knowledge that we have obtained through countless hours of learning through our websites and mentors to other teams. Recently, we have helped team RhinoCharge with their database usage, assisting them with the Mapbox software. As a team, we believe in growing together, empowering one another, solving world problems together.