78%
could not confidently identify a rip from the beach
OUR STORY · SYDNEY, AUSTRALIABuilt for the beaches
Illustrative coastal scene · AI-createdBuilt for the beaches
we call home.
A student project. A familiar coastline.
A better way to understand the water.
Where it startedA beach day starts
A beach day starts
before the beach.
RipCo is my Year 12 Design and Technology major work: a free iPhone app designed to make rip current awareness part of getting ready for the beach.
Public cameras already look out over the surf. The idea is to use that view to outline likely rip currents, and put it alongside the conditions on the phone you already carry.
Palm BeachDetection tested here first
iPhoneOne platform to start
The need behind the idea
Rip currents are Australia’s number one coastal hazard. Surf Life Saving Australia’s National Coastal Safety Report 2025 counted 154 coastal drowning deaths in 2024–25, the highest number on record, with a rip involved in more than one in three beach drowning deaths.1 Its 2018 survey found that three in four people could not spot a rip from the beach.2 Between the flags, lifesavers and lifeguards read the water for you; away from them, you are on your own judgement.
The tools that exist each do part of the job. BeachSafe shows patrol times and hazards, surf cams show live video, forecast apps show swell and wind. None of them reads the live picture for a rip. Many beaches already have a public camera pointed at the surf, and RipCo reads those feeds.
The user is a beachgoer who checks conditions before leaving, which 69% of the people I surveyed already do. They open the app at home in the morning with one question, what is the water doing at my beach, and may look again on the sand with one hand free. So the headline has to be readable in one glance, and the detection view is one tap from any screen.
For the people you love.
Before you head in.
Captured conditions, not live data.
Research
Survey, interviews, reading
Two pieces of primary research shaped the app, alongside the published reports. The full method and results are in my design folio; the sample was small, so the figures show direction, not precision.
84%
would use a mobile tool showing rips on a live camera view
69%
already check conditions before heading out
From my project survey of beachgoers. Small sample; full method and results in the design folio. These are not population estimates.
Make the invisible easier to see.
The outline on the live view and a home screen designed to be understood in one glance.
Surf Life Saving NSW patrol members
Interviews with patrol members shaped the safety commitment: no “safe” verdict anywhere in the app, and the reminder to check the flags on each beach card. The views are mine; nothing here is endorsed by Surf Life Saving.
What it changed: risk instead of safety, and the flags line under every card.
Reports and research
Surf Life Saving Australia’s coastal safety reports and survey, the UNSW Beach Safety Research Group’s rip research, and BeachSafe. Listed under sources.
What it changed: the three visual cues the model looks for, and the scale of the need.
Process
From an idea
From an idea
to something you can hold.
Six stages, from a hazard most people cannot see to a prototype running on a real camera.
Identify the need
Rips are the number one hazard on Australian beaches, and most people cannot pick one from the sand.
Research
A survey of beachgoers, interviews with patrol members, and the national coastal safety reports.
Concept
Use the public cameras already pointed at the surf, on the phone people already carry.
Prototype
An iPhone app with live cameras, conditions, a risk score and alerts, and a model trained on footage from Palm Beach.
Test
The model run on the Palm Beach camera and its outlines checked against the water, with the limits recorded as they appeared.
Evaluate and refine
The prototype judged against the criteria below; next, the early-access list, App Review and a second beach.
Made with intentionEvery detail
Every detail
has a reason.
Six choices shaped by research, patrol-member interviews and testing the prototype at Palm Beach.
Awareness in your pocket.
Judgement on the beach.
01Use cameras that already exist
New hardware would need money, permission and maintenance at every beach. Public cameras already look at the surf, so adding a beach costs software and testing. Nothing is manufactured, mounted or powered.
From: the need, and the budget of a student project.
02Show an outline and a confidence figure
A tick or a cross would ask you to trust the model. An outline shows where it is looking and the percentage shows how sure it is, so you can check both against what you see.
From: the survey, where 78% could not pick a rip and 84% wanted it shown on the camera.
03A risk score instead of a safety rating
Each beach card carries a score out of 100 labelled as a level of risk. The lowest band is still a level of risk, and the word safe does not appear in the app. How the score is built.
From: the patrol-member interviews.
04Flags first, under every card
The line “check the flags” sits under each beach card with the patrol status where known, and “Patrol unknown” where not. Missing information never reads as reassurance.
From: the interviews and Surf Life Saving guidance.
05Live means the camera, not the model
The Live tag says the camera is streaming. Detection is shown separately, on the Detect screen, only where I have tested it, so a stream is never mistaken for a checked beach.
From: testing, where most cameras stream and one has been checked.
06Free, one beach and one platform first
A safety tool behind a paywall protects the people who pay, so there is no subscription. Palm Beach and iPhone first, so I could train and test detection in one place before adding anything else.
From: the survey (84% would use a free mobile tool) and testing.
Criteria and evaluation
A work in progress.
A work in progress.
With a clear direction.
Each criterion traces back to the need or the research and carries an honest status.
One beach first.
Tested at Palm Beach. Each new camera needs its own footage and evaluation.
An iPhone prototype.
Conditions, cameras, risk and patrol information brought into one app.
Still in development.
Not yet on the App Store. More testing comes before a wider release.
Explore the full project evaluation
| Criterion | Where it comes from | How the app meets it | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Show a likely rip on the live view at a glance | 78% of survey respondents could not identify a rip | Red outline with a confidence figure on the Detect screen (decision 02) | Partly. Tested at Palm Beach only. |
| Never say a beach is safe | The patrol-member interviews; the flags come first | No safe verdict; the score is framed as risk; the flags line under each card (decisions 03, 04) | Met. See the home screen. |
| Work with cameras that already exist | New hardware needs money, permission and maintenance | Reads public camera feeds; nothing installed (decision 01) | Met. |
| Say when it cannot see | Night, rain and glare defeat any camera model | Detection marked unavailable when the image is unusable; confidence on each outline | Met. See limits. |
| The whole picture for a beach in one place | 69% already check conditions, across several sites | Conditions, risk score, live camera, alerts and patrol status on one screen (decision 05) | Met. |
| Free, on the phone people already carry | 84% would use a free mobile tool | A free iPhone app, no subscription (decision 06) | Partly. Not yet on the App Store. |
What I would change
- Detection has been tested on one camera; the next beach needs its own footage and its own test, and the feed belongs to someone else.
- iPhone only for now, and live video costs data and battery on the sand.
- Not yet shown to users beyond the interviews. Showing the build to survey respondents is the next evaluation step.
Sources and thanks
Where the figures come from
- Surf Life Saving Australia, National Coastal Safety Report 2025. sls.com.au
- Surf Life Saving Australia, National Coastal Safety Survey, 2018. sls.com.au/coastal-safety
- UNSW Beach Safety Research Group, rip current research. unsw.edu.au
- Surf Life Saving Australia, BeachSafe. beachsafe.org.au
Thanks to the Surf Life Saving NSW patrol members who gave their time for the interviews; their advice shaped the app and is not an endorsement of it. Weather data on this site by Open-Meteo (CC BY 4.0); map tiles by CARTO from OpenStreetMap contributors.
Designed and built in Sydney Year 12 Design and Technology major work, 2026