Gadgets
A teenager figured out a genius solution to every car’s blind spots
Sometimes you just have to MacGyver it.
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Ever MacGyver something together and it solves an issue? Like, combine several different items and immediately works out a particular problem? That’s what Alaina Gassler, 14 of Pennsylvania, did. As part of a contest, she created a piece of low-tech hardware that essentially removes blind spots from car pillars.
She accomplished this by using a combination of a webcam and a projector, as reported by Engadget.
Anyone driving in a suburban neighborhood or cyclist-friendly city knows how a car’s blind spots can be dangerous. Over the past few years, cars have been including their own cameras to help reduce the problems with blind spots and companies have been selling other products to alleviate various issues.
It was this situation that led to Gassler creating this webcam-projector-screen product, as she saw her mother having trouble seeing around her own car’s blind spots.
A webcam and projector? Interesting…
Gassler set up a wireless webcam on the right side of her mother’s car that records outside footage. From there, the footage on the camera is played on a projector right inside the car that will play it on a 3D-printed screen that is on the roof pillars. The video above will give someone a look inside how it works from the passenger’s side.
The middle schooler won the Broadcom MASTERS Science & Engineering competition for students her age and was awarded a $25,000 prize. Some get Ol’ Musky on this, ASAP.
How cool is this? Would you like to see some version of this system come to new cars and trucks? Let us know down below in the comments or carry the discussion over to our Twitter or Facebook.
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