Out of the Box
In the Box

Our Inspiration

In our school, Sierra Vista Middle School, there was an incident involving a girl on an e-bike. She was hit when she was crossing the road as a car was taking a right turn. She was completely unaware of the distracted driver behind her. Fortunately, there were no major injuries. But this sparked a fuse in our mind. What if we could improve bike safety, specifically road awareness, with a single device?

What it does

That's where BYKESYTE comes in. We designed a simple, yet useful device that could've been key to avoiding that incident. Our device has a camera that is on and recording while you drive your bike, then the brains of the device, a Raspberry Pi 4B, tracks all the cars in the image and their respective distances. Since we know the distances of the cars, we have the Raspberry Pi calculate the trajectory of the closest car and flash an LED if the car comes too close. This flashing of the LED would allow the biker time to take action to avoid a collision.

How we built it

First, we brainstormed ideas about the topic, this included where to put the device, how we would track cars and most importantly, if the solution was actually practical. Then, we got to work making the software function. This included the car detection, distance calculation, and trajectory. Next, we got to work on making the enclosure in CAD. While we were waiting for the 3D print to finish, we worked on the packaging and slides for the judging. [END OF DAY 1] Starting day 2, we quickly got to work finishing the Raspberry Pi software which included us making the program launch as soon as the Raspberry Pi booted.

Challenges we ran into

However, this was a major challenge we faced because trying to get the Raspberry Pi to start the program as soon as it turned on was tedious. This was a major concern because the user doesn't have a screen to start the program, so we had to edit some files that would fix this issue. Another challenge we had was CADing the enclosure for the product because our measurements had to be perfect. We were able to fix this by making the layout simpler.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Although there were many setbacks, we were proud of how far this project came in just two days. The fact that we went from an idea to an actual physical product still amazes us. We were very happy when both of our issues were able to be solved as they could've made the product turn out worse than we wanted it to be. We are proud that we created project contributing to the United Nation's sustainable development goal 3, promoting health for all ages. BykeSyte helps the youngest of riders, which ensures healthy lives and promotes well-being for all at all ages.

What we learned

Some of the major takeaways we got from this hackathon were mainly basic things like teamwork, flexibility. However, we learned more uncommon things such as aesthetics and design, especially for the case and packaging.

What's next for BykeSyte

There are many things we have in store for BykeSyte. Our best ideas are adding a sound device, shaped and made to feel like an AirPod, that will make a buzzer sound or any sound you want to play when a car may hit you. Another good idea takes advantage of the fact that we have a camera. We could connect an OLED display that goes on the handlebars of the bike. This would display information like the view of the camera, GPS navigation, and much more that we have in store for this product.