As in many Latin American countries, in Mexico the majority of the population feels insecurity on the streets of their cities. The National Urban Public Security Survey (ENSU), in December 2024, showed that 42.5% of the population aged 18 and over, residing in urban areas of interest, changed their habits regarding wearing jewelry, money or credit cards, for fear of suffering any crime.
In the case of students, who spend their day away from home, they need to pack all their valuables. With that in mind, a group of young people designed a smart backpack with a locking and mobile alert system, which aims to safeguard the user’s properties or alert in case of opening the backpack. The creation, called “PacPak”, was won in 2024 by Solve for Tomorrow Mexico. The prototype is complemented by a mobile app and GPS system.
The team was composed of four young people from upper secondary education, who were around 16 years old. In the school where they studied, the Center for Scientific and Technological Studies 18 “Zacatecas”, there is a vision of technical education, where students are encouraged to develop student innovations using technology.
The mediator teacher, Alan Femat, is a professor of Programming Language and applications and has already participated in five other editions of Solve for Tomorrow – some with finalist projects. He explains that these results are related to a teaching strategy of the institution, focused on Project Based Learning. “What happens is that in the school there is a program called Classroom Project, where each school cycle students have to develop a project to address some real problems of society,” he says.
For this, Femat promotes the methodology of Design Thinking and invites students to reflect on their own life situations. “One of the boys mentioned that he had a jacket stolen, which he liked very much, when he was in high school. They saw the situation as an opportunity to brainstorm around the security issue,” he says.
One of them proposed to create a backpack that would secure their things and many colleagues disdained the idea a bit and I told them never to doubt an idea, as all can be guided to its potential, says professor Alan Femat.
The first proposal, then, was a backpack that used magnets and a polarity sensor to detect when any of its compartments were open. As the magnets separated, the polarity change triggered a vibration in the user’s back and a thud that emitted a sound, alerting him to the movement.
In addition to this change, the prototype was integrated into a mobile application to notify via Bluetooth when the backpack is not next to the person. “For example, if you leave your backpack away to go to breakfast and someone opens it, you will receive a notification,” the teacher explains. For that, they used MIT App Inventor, a free platform to create apps that can be integrated into mobile Android or iOS.
To the circuit, a GPS module was also added to monitor the location of the prototype in case of need. For the teacher, the combination of technologies is the main differentiator of this project, since in initial searches it was possible to find backpacks with GPS or padlocks, but none with all the resources that “PacPak” presents in a single model.
Check the video how the backpack works:
Skills developed through student innovation
According to Professor Femat, the students already had the technical knowledge necessary for developing the smart backpack, because such knowledge is part of the curriculum grid of their education.” But there is one skill that has improved greatly throughout the project: problem-solving. If a sensor didn’t work or something wasn’t handled well, they had to look for the information themselves and run tests and errors until it worked,’ he recalls.
For Femat, the role of the teacher mediator must be to identify each student’s specific skills, helping them find their place in the team and guiding them through challenges so that they have autonomy, freedom and can awaken their creativity. “Young people themselves have to give the answers and decide their roles internally. Only when I see them a bit lost do I help,”
This approach demonstrates how student innovation not only produces technological prototypes, but also develops key skills such as: critical thinking and teamwork in learning.
