Hello,
My name is Marius Mathisen and I am a developer. I have a step-daughter, who I consider my own daughter, who is mentally impaired. I try to use technology as much as possible to help her to function and help her progress in area where she is behind in development. In 2012 we were a lot in media, both national and international. You can read an IGN article about us here: http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/11/14/dad-makes-game-to-help-child . Her progress the last few years has been amazing, a lot of it is thanks to technology.
I know the software and development part, but I really want to learn more about hardware so I can help her even more. But I really don´t know were to begin.
What I want to make first is a button on the wall next to her toilet, so she can send a message to her mother when she needs help. She is 11 years now, and starting to become more conscious about her body and the use of toilet. She calls on her mother when she needs help, but often very shy with very low voice. Often we are not able to hear her and she just sits and wait for us to kind of discover that she needs help. So what I want to make is a button that she can press, that can automatic send a signal to both our mobile phones somehow (sms or wifi) and tell us that she needs help. I was thinking this could be a good starter project for me and also will help her very much.
So my question is, where do I start? Is Arduino overkill for this? What components do you suggest? Just give some pointers and some input, I will try to handle it from there. 
Thank you.
