::  Project Motivation:

Here are a few relevant statistics to reveal some truths about drowning:

1.       Drowning is the 2nd leading cause of accidental death among children ¹

2.       Drowning has caused 3600 unintentional fatal injuries – approximately 10/day ²

3.       42% of all drowning are caused by the lack of adult supervision ³

Despite drowning being such a major cause of unintentional deaths, there are only detection systems available on the market. Such as:

• Depth Locator (senTAG) ⁴

• Visual Monitoring (Poseidon) ⁵

• Buoyant floating device to assist lifeguards (Rescue Buoy) ⁶

For all these systems, a manual response coupled with the automated detection is required to successfully save an individual from drowning. But, this can be ineffective since 42% of all drowning are caused due to the lack of adult supervision.

To develop an integrated system to identify, detect, alarm, locate, and respond to a drowning event

Pillar’s will aim to reduce the number of accidental drowning related injuries and deaths by targeting:

• Audience: Children under the age of 14

• Environment: Swimming pools

• Market: Existing swimming pools, pool installation companies, and swim suit manufacturers

Source 1: www.cbc.ca/news/background/consumers/water-safety