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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: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 04 2019, @02:29AM
I'm the AC that started this subject. You want a citation, here's one, bulk steel prices - https://www.alibaba.com/showroom/ultra-high-strength-steel.html [alibaba.com] Plenty of hits to choose from with a simple search.
Costs for a variety of different alloys seem to be from $450 - $800 per ton. Some of the coils on that page are just cold rolled, others fancy alloys that gain strength in forming.
To change a few critical areas of a car body-in-white from low/medium strength steel to a much stronger alloy is not a big deal in cost.
To the other comments on airbags -- have you noticed how steering wheel airbags have shrunk over the years? A-pillar airbags are also shrinking to match what can be built with good steel (and still pass the rollover test requirement).