Scrunch
Wearable Tech
Observed a popular style trend amongst college girls — hair scrunchies, often worn around the wrist or ankle as an accessory to enhance an outfit. Explored the intersection between style and tech, the scrunchie aims to encourage society to step up and stop sexual assault on campus.
This was a project developed from a 24-Hour Hackathon, Hack and Roll 2020, organised by National University of Singapore. Our project was nominated as Top8 Awesome Hack.
The scrunchie is first connected to the phone app via Bluetooth. By simply scrunching the hairband at times of crisis, it begins to vibrate, alerting the user in case of a false trigger. After scrunching for 3 seconds continuously, an alert is activated to send a distress text message to the user’s emergency contacts. Also, it will start to record its surrounding using the phone’s microphone and saved into the phone.
Interdisciplinary team
Fashion design: Upcycled fabrics to make sustainable and fashionable scrunchies with a zipper opening.
Software: We used the android studio to develop an app that is able to communicate with an Arduino nano through BlueTooth. We created a Bluetooth handler that detects the distress call from the scrunchie. Upon receiving the distress call we get the current location of the user and sends them to their emergency contacts through SMS for help.
Hardware: The product consists mainly of components such as Arduino, HC-05, vibration motor and conductive threads. When the conductive threads are touched by the user, the vibration motor will vibrate to alert the user in case of a false trigger. After 3 seconds, the HC-05 Bluetooth module will send a signal to the phone.
