Tech Forecast: Team Heatwave

Student Scientists Prevent In-Car Heat Related Incidents  

Team Heatwave is working on improving our prototype designed to alert drivers when children are in a vehicle and temperatures are dangerously high.  We called the device the Infant Saver. It is currently made of 5 main components, the load cell, a temperature sensor, a buzzer, LED lights, and an Arduino board. Currently, the device is programmed to first sense a weight in the car seat itself. When there is a weight detected and the surrounding environment is above 80 degrees Fahrenheit, the parent is presented with a red light and a buzzer, alerting that it is too hot for the child inside the car. This alert system will alert the guardians of the child that they should ether cool down the car or remove the child from the car before the child suffers from a heatstroke and possible death. We are working towards developing a new weight detector design and adding a Bluetooth component to our prototype.  Our goal is to make it more compact in design as well.

Since we received the STEM-in-Action grant, we purchased several new components to improve our initial prototype design.  These include a Bluetooth module, a new Raspberry Pi format, FlexiForce pressure sensors, which are more compact, and a smaller motherboard structure.  We have also designed templates for pamphlets and flyers in order to educate the community about the dangers of heat in vehicles, especially to children, the elderly, and pets.

On April 7th, Team Heatwave presented our project at our school district’s Science and Engineering Fair. We displayed our new prototype design and distributed educational material about the dangers of heat in motor vehicles. In the spring, as the weather warms, we plan to present our prototype and educational information at local area events, such as our town’s carnival in May. We plan to distribute flyers and sample prototypes to families in our communityso they can test it and give us feedback.

We have run into quite a few problems, but we try and persevere. At the moment, our prototype has some coding issues and we sometimes struggle to find the problem.   We have also had some problems with wiring, so again we review our plan and reorganize our work.  

The most important thing we have learned is to work together as a team, learn from our mistakes, and never give up!

Team Heatwave