Climate-Sense Community Hackathons
Climate-Sense is the second chapter of an ongoing community heat-health campaign, following on from HeatAware SG: A study exploring indoor heat behaviours, knowledge, and exposure among seniors aged 50 and above.
Across four hackathon runs over four months, more than 80 community members, including youths, caregivers, delivery riders and community volunteers, came together to co-create affordable, practical, low-tech solutions for three heat-vulnerable groups: seniors, delivery riders, and children.
Before each hackathon began, a heat-health masterclass shared HeatAware SG's findings with participants, giving them a grounded, Singapore-specific understanding of urban heat before they picked up any materials.
From there, teams worked through the same process used throughout the playbook: Framing who they were designing for and where heat became a problem in that person's day, then brainstorming, before settling on an idea to build. Each team then had a single afternoon to prototype their solution using low-cost, easy-access materials such as tape, cooling gel packs, and cardboard, with AI-assisted vibe-coding tools joining the toolkit from Run 3 onwards. The day closed with teams pitching their prototype back to the group.
The Results
16 prototypes built in a single afternoon each, tackling three real design challenges:
Helping seniors garden and exercise outdoors safely
Helping delivery riders cool down between deliveries
Redesigning preschool outdoor time to build children's heat tolerance
Notable Solutions
Anti-Heat (Run 1)
Target audience: Delivery Riders
Consists of a route-planning app capable of calculating routes with reduced heat exposure, in addition to a cooling vest
Cooling Stroller (Run 2)
Target audience: Children
Features dual, two-directional fans mounted on the handlebars cooling both caretaker and child, as well as a cooling seat (lined with cooling gel) that works consistently without power
Cooling Wearable Set (Run 2)
Target audience: Children
Made up of three linked pieces: a slap-on heat detector, a heat dissipative shirt and a magnetically-attached back cooler
Dive into the Climate-Sense
Community Hackathons Report for the full brief, the Climate-Sense Solutions Playbook for a practical toolkit to design your own heat solution, or the full list of Community Prototypes to browse all 16 side by side with the lessons learned from each:
