Door Defrost

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  enclosure for demonstration...

Inspiration

Winter is coming...

What it does

Defrosts your door frame when your car is unlocked. This way you never have to beat your door open again in the bitter cold winter.

How we built it

We used an arduino 101 with bluetooth capabilities and linked it with a phone app. This app (representing the unlock feature on a cell phone), can then trigger an arduino code which measures the temperature of key areas to determine if heating is required or not required.

Challenges we ran into

The bluetooth compatibility of the arduino did not want to play nicely with apps we built. The enclosure developed in sketch up was sent to the 3d printing lab where the print was not printed to scale. We also had issues getting our code to function optimally on the arduino.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Our proof of concept works!! And we made due with the 3D prints that were successful.

What we learned

How to link a phone to an arduino via bluetooth. How to do basic HTML and Javascript code editing. Learned how to play Penta-Pong... and learned how to use SketchUP. It was especially enlightening to learn how to prove your idea works with limited resources and failed attempts.

What's next for DoorDefrost

We'd like to get back to ONU where we can build the proper heat resistors to test on the car door. We can build a section of a door to test the concept on and find the optimal heat element locations along with the ideal locations for the temperature sensor(s). The thing we'd like to know most is if the heating elements can be efficient enough to not task the battery. Especially considering poor battery performances in the extreme cold. Maybe some day, DoorDefrost will be a standard feature on every vehicle!

Built With

• arduino