The problem SafeWayBot solves

SafeWayBot addresses the problem of pedestrian safety in areas with high crime rates. Many people avoid walking in such areas due to safety concerns, which limits their mobility and access to important resources. SafeWayBot was developed as a solution to this problem, providing users with a safer route and access to helpline numbers for additional support.

With SafeWayBot, users can input their starting point and destination, and the bot will generate a route that minimizes the risk of crime along the way. This can help users feel safer and more confident when walking in areas with high crime rates, which can improve their mobility and access to important resources. The bot also emails users a list of helpline numbers for the region they will be traveling in, providing an added layer of safety and support.

Overall, SafeWayBot makes it easier and safer for people to walk in areas with high crime rates, allowing them to access important resources and improve their quality of life.

Challenges I ran into

During the development of SafeWayBot, one of the main challenges we faced was finding reliable crime rate data to use as a basis for our route suggestions. We initially tried to use publicly available crime data, but found that the data was often incomplete or outdated, which led to inaccurate route suggestions.

To overcome this challenge, we decided to partner with local law enforcement agencies to obtain more accurate and up-to-date crime data. This required a lot of outreach and negotiation, but ultimately allowed us to provide more reliable route suggestions for our users.

Another challenge we faced was integrating the email functionality into the bot. We wanted to ensure that users received the helpline numbers for their region in a timely and secure manner, but had difficulty finding a secure and reliable email service to use.

To overcome this challenge, we researched different email providers and eventually settled on one that met our security and reliability requirements. We also implemented a rigorous testing and debugging process to ensure that the email functionality was working properly before releasing the bot to the public.

Overall, these challenges helped us to refine and improve the functionality of SafeWayBot, and allowed us to provide a more reliable and effective solution for pedestrian safety in areas with high crime rates.