NIDA: alarm-aware EWIS announcements
Fire wardens rotate across shifts on the NIDA campus, and when an announcement needs to go out, the person on duty is reading from a script under pressure. Different accents, speeds, and delivery styles meant the same message landed inconsistently for the hundreds of people on site. Under real stress the warden had enough to deal with without worrying about their voice carrying clearly across the building.
We built a messaging system that extends the site’s Ampac EvacuElite EWIS without touching any life-safety path. A touchscreen installed beside the EWIS controls lets wardens play standardised, pre-recorded messages with a single press. The system watches the Ampac FireFinder+ fire panel through an isolated relay: in normal operation the UI shows the full library of general announcements; when the panel goes into alarm, the UI switches automatically to a focused emergency flow with only the three relevant warden responses and large, unambiguous broadcast buttons. A separate browser-based simulator, with a vectorised copy of the EvacuElite panel, lets wardens rehearse the whole flow from any laptop without touching the live system.
Live in production. Every announcement goes out clear and consistent. Wardens get the right screen for the state they’re in. Training happens in the simulator, and the FireFinder+ and EvacuElite continue to do their primary life-safety jobs exactly as before.
