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14-Year-Old Genius Solves Blind Spots
Using some relatively inexpensive and readily available technology you can find at any well-stocked electronics store, Alaina Gassler, a 14-year-old inventor from West Grove, Pennsylvania, came up with a clever way to eliminate the blind spot created by the thick pillars on the side of a car's windshield.
Gassler's actually too young to have a driver's license in most states and has never experienced the frustration of trying to see around those pillars while driving, but that didn't stop her from tackling a problem that automakers have largely ignored. Her solution involves installing an outward-facing webcam on the outside of a vehicle's windshield pillar, and then projecting a live feed from that camera onto the inside of that pillar. Custom 3D-printed parts allowed her to perfectly align the projected image so that it seamlessly blends with what a driver sees through the passenger window and the windshield, essentially making the pillar invisible.
Her invention was part of a project called "Improving Automobile Safety by Removing Blind Spots," which Gassler presented at this year's Society for Science and the Public's Broadcom MASTERS (Math, Applied Science, Technology, and Engineering for Rising Stars) science and engineering competition. (It's basically a next-level science fair minus the cheesy papier-mâché volcanoes.) Her ingenuity was enough to earn her the competition's top honor, the Samueli Foundation Prize, which also netted Gassler $25,000.
A YouTube video of this invention in use is available.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 03 2019, @05:52AM (1 child)
Those cameras and screens also have to support the ridiculously high dynamic range that we encounter between the bright sunny day and a night road that is illuminated only by the headlights, your own or oncoming. I wonder what is better - to depend on technology and not see a shadowy figure, or to look around the pillar and see it. The rear view cameras that already replace glass mirrors in some European cars (and coming to the USA [slashgear.com]) do not need to be so sensitive, as they look into the past, and they are good enough to see a car with lights - not any worse, at least, than a regular mirror. But forward vision is more demanding, and at night drivers regularly have to detect pedestrians or bicyclists in dark clothes who think they are invulnerable.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday November 03 2019, @12:29PM
10,000 or 30,000 nits oughta be bright enough.
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