By Calistus Imbayi
Two Form One students from Kisumu Junior Academy may just provide a solution to the Kenya’s rampant road carnage if their research invention is seriously taken into account by the relevant departments.
Nanan Patel and Ansha Patel have come up with an important scientific discovery that would detect when a driver is dosing or feeling drowsy while driving and sends the required signals to alert the driver and the passengers as well as to the engine of the vehicle, switching it off.
The discovery dubbed Mechatronic Sleep Detector for Road safety was exhibited during the 56th edition of Kenya Science and Engineering Fair held at St. Mary’s Kibabii Boys High School in Bungoma County in April.
The research which took the two students only four months of concentration involves light emitting diode (LED) transmitting light to the eye which is reflected to the light dependent resistor (LDR) where the radio transmitter sends wireless transmissions to the receiver and informs when the eyes are either open or closed.
“When the eyes of the driver close the LDR does not sense any light reflection and, therefore, no transmission is done hence the arduino will switch on and output a transmission to stop the motor and send signals to cause the alarm to ring alerting the driver and passengers, Nanan said.
The vehicle hazards will also go on to alert oncoming vehicles.
Ansha Patel added that the statistics of accidents caused by drowsiness are so alarming thus providing a platform for the need of a reliable driver drowsiness and or sleep detector system in order to reduce accidents.
The Kenya National Transport and Safety Authority-NTSA has estimated that approximately 85 per cent of the accidents that happen are as a result of drowsiness or drivers sleeping while on the wheel.
The two Form One students won number one trophy in the category of Energy and they promised to continue working on their project to make sure the device it works perfectly to be adopted in the transport sector.
Safty of the students is more important issues.