The device is built up with an Adafruit Feather HUZZAH and a Mercury Tilt Switch Module for Arduino. They are programmed to detect if an earthquake is occurring based on vibration recorded and tweets by people next to you.

A push button was mounted on the side to switch to flashlight but only while it is pressed to conserve battery life. A secondary button, could control a short loud rescue signal for trapped people.

The tilt sensor works best in horizontal position. Therefore mounting it against a wall is the optimal setup, as evidenced by initial prototyping and testing.