#John Alling and Marissa D'Alonzo

This hack attempts to solve a problem facing many veterans today- nightmares and insomnia. According to the US Department of Veteran's Affairs, up to 1.6 million (8%) veterans experience post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD at some point in their life. A major symption of PTSD is insomnia and nightmares. In addition, up to 52% of combat veterans suffer from recurring nightmares. This has major negative effects on motor and mental dexterity, mood, and overall health.

Our solution to this problem is Dreamcatcher, an IoT sleep aid designed to help veterans get to sleep and stay asleep. Dreamcatcher first lulls the user to sleep by guiding them in the traditional yoga breathing techinque of 4-7-8 breathing. Then, it monitors room temperature and light via sensors on the board, and the user's sweat level and general movement using sensors attached to their body. If Dreamcatcher senses the user is having a nightmare, it will gently awaken them using gradually increasing, but relaxing, tones, and then prompt them to complete the 4-7-8 breathing. In addition, it will store and graph the light and temperature readings and a "Sleep Quality Index", a value between 0-100 ranking the user's quality of sleep. Over time, these graphs will reveal the optimal lighting and temperature sleep settings for the user.

To extend our solution further, we would first like to export the sensors measuring user informtation to a wearable band using Bluetooth. We would also acquire more components, including a EKG sensor to measure heartbeat and higher-quality speakers. We would also like to incorporate a chatbot for the user to speak with about the dream if it was too upsetting to go back to sleep.