Foresight

Inspiration

Distractions exist all around us from phones, to people, to just things that catch our eyes. When you add extreme weather, limited visibility, and grogginess, it's become apparent why so many people die each year from car crashes. We have been exposed to many horrific accidents like these, and we believe all crashes can be prevented. That is why we set out to develop a way to integrate innovative technologies and incentives to decrease the number of accidents while ensuring consumers of all economic status can afford our product.

What it does

Using real-time light intensity for weather conditions, speed, reaction times, braking distance, and obstacle detection, we are able to formulate a reliable and accurate braking distances to alert drivers when they are too close to an object. There are three levels of alert status: blue, yellow, and red. Blue is when obstacles are far away, and the driver is in the safest conditions. Yellow indicates that it is possible to stop before colliding with an object, but there isn't a lot of time to do so. Red indicates immediate danger. This means that drivers could either stop with a little time of left or would collide if the object ahead stopped immediately. To alert drivers, we use both a back-lit LCD with text indicators and distinct colors, so drivers can be aware of their status without taking their eyes off the road. Furthermore, we included a loud beep with a red alert, so even distracted drivers with have their attention pulled back to the road. Finally, data from the drive is recorded and accessible by the driver and insurance companies so that good drivers can be rewarded, while all drivers can see how close they drove to obstacles to improve in future driving.

How we built it

We constructed our system by using C programming on an Arduino 101. We implemented ultrasonic, potentiometer, LCD, buzzers, photoresistors, and a button to sense surrounding environments and display to user.

Challenges we ran into

We had a very large issue with one syntax error that was very time consuming. We also had to account for the inaccuracies and fluctuating values from sensors. Also, implementing certain libraries into our program were difficult because of compatibility errors. Finally, with our generally minimum exposure to hardware, it was difficult to incorporate it with our programs

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We were most proud of our ability to develop the end product in the same light we imagined it in our first hackathon. We also got excited that we were able to incorporate so many variables that factor into driving accidents to ensure we can promote safety in drivers today. We were proud that we now are able to use hardware with programs we write.

What we learned

We learned how to use software and implement it with hardware.

What's next for Foresight

For the future of Foresight, we plan to expand the depth of the software. We will create a website to push the data we pull for companies to easily access the information. Then companies that deal with insurance and car history can be always up to date with the data of vehicles. Additionally, we plan to incorporate more sensors to improve accuracy of the product.