Packop

The problem we would like to solve is package thieves. It is getting a bigger problem in the United States, so we want to help everyone to keep their packages safe from thieves. Our service name is Packop from two words, package and cop, which has software running on our developed hardware. At the beginning of our project, we realized that it might be hard to stop someone who has a strong intention to steal packages unless we set up a safe place, so the way we approach this problem is to leverage the watching-eye effect to discourage thieves. We design our service trying to engage in situations when someone tries stealing your packages. Through Azure IoT edge platform, we are able to develop our software and deploy it to our hardware easily and conveniently. Cognitive services enable us to detect and recognize people and packages, which helps packop to understand and react to various situations. We save all meaningful data in Azure SQL database and blob storage, and then our Power BI provides a report that has all information about suspicious activities around your home to users. Also, the email with the video URL is sent to users. We expect that the more people start using our product, the more meaningful and influential data we can create. It will prevent potential thieves from becoming actual thieves. "I am here for you, Packop".

We are graduate students studying Technology Innovation at the University of Washington. Our team has diversity. All team members are from different countries and educational backgroud, but all of us are really interested in solving social problems with technology. This encouraged us to come together as a team and start this project.