Three ISU computer science students will compete this weekend in a worldwide competition to see which team’s innovation can make the world a safer place.

Melanie Davis, senior in computer science, Douglas Houghton, graduate student in electrical and computer engineering, and Shahzaib Younis, senior in pre-computer science, were selected as one of 10 teams to compete in the Computer Society’s International Design Contest, which is sponsored by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.

“It’s a big honor to be in the top 10 in the world,” Younis said.

The contest asked undergraduate students worldwide to design special computer-based devices to solve real-world problems using the theme “Making the World A Safer Place.”

The ISU group’s submission, “Spatial Cue,” is a wearable, location-based alert system that could assist rescue workers by use of a Global Positioning System and a personal digital assistant.

The idea is to provide timely information to rescuers and dispatchers where and when they need it by allowing them to leave and receive messages anywhere in physical space, Younis said.

Team members said they brainstormed for about five months before starting, and took a total of almost eight months to complete the project.

Their idea incorporates two parts.

The first will track rescuers with the GPS locator, which allows the dispatchers to coordinate efforts, according to the team’s report.

The second part is to, through the use of a server, allow rescuers to leave messages that are indicated by their GPS location.

According to the report, “other rescuers can listen to stored messages when they are in the same vicinity as the recorded message’s GPS tag.”

“It is quite a prestigious accomplishment,” said Simanta Mitra, the team’s adviser and a lecturer of computer science.

More than 250 teams from 144 schools submitted ideas, and the top 10 teams were selected based on their final project reports.

Iowa State and the University of Virginia are the only two U.S. college and university teams participating in the finals.

The other teams are from Germany, Nepal, Brazil, Pakistan, Taiwan, Romania, Poland and South Africa.

Some of the other topics range from earthquake detection and water pollution to child abduction prevention.

Houghton said it was a good opportunity to get recognition for the extra work the team has done.

“Making it this far is a huge accomplishment,” Davis said. “We went into it with high goals.”

The team wanted to bring recognition to both Iowa State and the computer science department, Houghton said.