Four Poplar Bluff Technical Career Center students made their way to Jefferson City yesterday to meet with government officials about a 911 app they developed.
The Project Lead the Way Computer Science students met with Sen. Doug Libla and Rep. Jeff Shawan to discuss the app and how it can be implemented with emergency dispatch centers.
The app would allow people to send an email to dispatch with their location and specifications about whether they need police, fire or EMS. The goal would be to allow people who can’t verbally communicate for any reason to still receive help when it’s needed. Once open, the user would hit two buttons in order to send an email to dispatch.
Recently, the students won first place in the regional SkillsUSA competition for community service with the app after the other teams dropped out. They will take it to the state competition on April 3-4 in Jefferson City.
“I don’t think I’ve ever experienced something that cool,” junior Jeremy Bell said. “When we first thought of this, we definitely didn’t see it going as far as talking to senators and representatives. It’s just crazy to think about.”
While meeting in Libla’s office, the teens also met with Scott Pennington, a 911 lobbyist, who suggested ways to improve the app.
Several of Pennington’s main questions related to the app’s ability to locate the user. He said a phone only needs to be connected to one cell tower in order to send a text message, but three to send a detailed location.
“That’s one of the hardest things,” he said.
Butler County Emergency Management Agency Director Robbie Myers offered to help the students run tests to determine whether the app is currently using one or three towers to determine a location.
Pennington also asked when the app picks up the user’s location. For instance, if it picks up the location when the app is opened, that might not be the user’s location anymore.
Another thing Pennington said officials look at with this type of technology would be the ability to perform what’s called reverse 911. This would allow law enforcement to communicate with specific groups of people in the case of an emergency.
For instance, Myers — who sat in on the meetings — brought up using the app in connection with a registration list currently offered through the Butler County Health Department to contact individuals with special health concerns in the event of an emergency.
“It’s all on paper,” he said. “If this is something we get up and going, we can have people register through that so we have some communication with these people before an emergency.”
At the mention of this kind of functionality, the students started voicing ideas. They brought up ways to put warning notifications in the app for specific areas in the event of a potentially dangerous suspect in the area or attach extreme weather notifications to it.
The app itself is already set up for users to fill out pre-existing conditions, including allergies, when it’s downloaded with that information available to EMS while en route.
During their meeting with Shawan, discussion turned to the next course of action. He offered to contact a cell phone expert to ask for a summit. The goal would be to address the students’ cell tower connections and location abilities with the app.
The students expressed to both Libla and Shawan some of the frustration they ran into designing this because dispatch operates through landline phones. The original idea was to use text message to communicate with 911 operators, but due to this limitation, it is developed to send emails instead.
“We don’t have control over that,” Bell said. “That (and the cell towers are) just out of our control. That’s why it’s good we talked to representatives because they can potentially impact that.”
For the students, the next step is to take the discussion points and turn them into actual code. Bell said he plans to code in the reverse 911 capabilities.
Another project involves working with Myers, Police Chief Danny Whiteley and Fire Chief Ralph Stucker to put out a survey to the public. The survey would ask residents about their interest in the idea of the app.
This data is needed for the students’ presentation at the state level competition. They’ll also receive letters of recommendation from Myers, Libla and Shawan in favor of the project and the impact it could have on the community.
Computer science teacher Michael Barrett told Shawan the students have gone almost as far as they can with this app. These meetings, as Shawan said, helped expand the team working on it.
“The main goal (of the app) is for everybody, at least in the state, to be able to use it,” said Kristen Laird, notetaker.
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