A teenager from the US managed to clear the blind spots of her mother's car, using a webcam and movie projector.
As every driver and every rider knows, the blind spots of a car can become extremely dangerous, as it obstructs its visibility. Although companies are working on various high-tech solutions to solve this problem, one 14 year old from Pennsylvania, United States of America, has adopted a low-tech approach to create a smart solution.
Alaina Gassler decided to put a camera on the exterior of a car, the one on the windshield and the side window, which could record everything that was covered by the driver's eyes. She then used a projector to project live on the inside of the pole that the camera gave her. The image was in line with the natural landscape.
Check out the video below with the results:
The approach is surprisingly effective, with the pillars of the car almost transparent and the driver easily able to see the blind spots of the car, even when it was in motion. Gassler says she used a reflective fabric to make the image brighter and clearer and to reflect the image to the driver only.
For her efforts, Gassler won the first prize at the Broadcom Masters science and engineering competition for high schools, which was accompanied by the amount of 25.000 dollars. By using fairly simple and affordable materials, her idea could eventually be turned into a commercial vehicle, as a typical safety feature.
