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posted by janrinok on Sunday November 03 2019, @04:14AM   Printer-friendly
from the now-why-didn't-I-think-of-that? dept.

Submitted via IRC for soylent_yellow

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.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 04 2019, @12:01PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 04 2019, @12:01PM (#915685)

    The acceleration on many new cars has been badly tuned in order to meet government fuel efficiency standards.
    When using the accelerator in a normal fashion, you get lethargic acceleration. But, if you want actual power, you floor the thing and then the engine/transmission roars with power. The thing is, I don't want to drive that way. I just want smooth, quiet power delivered in a linear manner without having to floor it, not this binary weak/monster power curve.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 05 2019, @04:43AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 05 2019, @04:43AM (#916131)

    If anyone is still here, the industry calls this "tip-in" -- changing the effective "gearing" between the accelerator pedal and the power output (or throttle plate angle). Some companies liked to make the first bit of throttle pedal quickly open the throttle to 1/3 or so, this meant that with a light touch on the pedal, the car would surge forward and feel very "powerful" to the prospective buyer.

    This might have been effective for selling cars, but it also makes the car hard to live with in normal driving, hard to accurately control the power at the low-power end of the engine capability.