14-Year-Old Girl Finds A Way To Solve The Blind Spot Problem In Cars
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Every driver is familiar with the dreaded blind spot problem. However, it is more than just an annoyance. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, over 840,000 car accidents occur due to the blind spot. Those zones which cannot be directly observed by the driver often causes incidents that result in serious property damage and in some cases even fatalities. While drivers can take precautions such as adjusting the driver’s seat and side mirrors properly, installing backup cameras and so on, they won’t eliminate the invisible spots completely. Therefore, the driver will always have to carry the responsibility of being constantly aware of blinds spots as failing to do that can lead to accidents.
Luckily, now there’s a solution for that and it comes from a 14-year-old girl, who doesn’t even have a driver’s license yet.
However, not being able to drive didn’t prevent Alaina Gassler from understanding the important issue of traffic accidents resulting from blind spots.
In fact, she knows the problem so well, that she actually solved it for us. And the way she did it is nothing but genius.
Earlier this week, Alaina Gassler from West Grove, Pennsylvania presented her invention at the Broadcom MASTERS (Math, Applied Science, Technology, and Engineering for Rising Stars) competition for middle schoolers from the Society for Science and the Public.
Her project is called “Improving Automobile Safety by Removing Blind Spots” and work in a relatively simple way as she explained: “I did that by having a camera behind the a-pillar of a car and the camera sent the video to a projector that projected the image onto the pillar essentially making it invisible and making the driver see behind it.”
To complete this invention, she used easily attainable materials such as a webcam, projector, and 3D-printed materials that project the view from outside your vehicle onto the blind spots of your car.
Gassler was awarded for her life-saving invention. It earned her the top place in a nationwide competition with the $25,000 Samueli Foundation Prize in honor of overall STEM excellence.
Watch the video demonstrating how her invention works
Here’s how people reacted:
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That's not the "dangerous blind spot"!
There's already tech out there to sense something in the dangerous blind spot(s) and beep at you if you put on a turn signal to turn into that direction. I'm all up for this idea in the future. I've definitely run into scenarios when I didn't see a pedestrian in this blind spot area. Maybe in the future then use flexible OLED displays instead of a projector. Still impressed by how accurately they got this working. Definitely has potential as a low-budget solution to be added on to current and older cars that don't have this tech.
The answer is proximity sensors, and areas that display in red around the car image on an lcd screen. BTW, lots of credit to Alaina for good thinking outside the box, terriffic engineering ability, and coming up with this on her own, even if it already been invented but not widely known. Brilliant.
The problrm with that is that a lot of people don't signal. They come here from asia and india where there few driving laws, and they drive like they are still at home.
A truck almost took me out on my bike because of that blind spot, so I would say it qualifies as A dangerous blind spot.
How do you know that was the reason for him almost taking you out? are you a driver or were you in the vehicle at the time?
Absolutely correct. 4 and 8 o'clock are defined by the DMV as "blind spots"
Yes but this jumpy image projection in the corner of your eye... will surely help you?
Even if its not a new tech, i think its a great and useful invention for a 14 years old. :)
This a bad blind spot in my car. Glad someone is working on fixing this.
That's not the "dangerous blind spot"!
There's already tech out there to sense something in the dangerous blind spot(s) and beep at you if you put on a turn signal to turn into that direction. I'm all up for this idea in the future. I've definitely run into scenarios when I didn't see a pedestrian in this blind spot area. Maybe in the future then use flexible OLED displays instead of a projector. Still impressed by how accurately they got this working. Definitely has potential as a low-budget solution to be added on to current and older cars that don't have this tech.
The answer is proximity sensors, and areas that display in red around the car image on an lcd screen. BTW, lots of credit to Alaina for good thinking outside the box, terriffic engineering ability, and coming up with this on her own, even if it already been invented but not widely known. Brilliant.
The problrm with that is that a lot of people don't signal. They come here from asia and india where there few driving laws, and they drive like they are still at home.
A truck almost took me out on my bike because of that blind spot, so I would say it qualifies as A dangerous blind spot.
How do you know that was the reason for him almost taking you out? are you a driver or were you in the vehicle at the time?
Absolutely correct. 4 and 8 o'clock are defined by the DMV as "blind spots"
Yes but this jumpy image projection in the corner of your eye... will surely help you?
Even if its not a new tech, i think its a great and useful invention for a 14 years old. :)
This a bad blind spot in my car. Glad someone is working on fixing this.