Final project Presentation-Automobile Toddler Alerting System (ATAS) Toggle navigation

1. Project description – Concept of the Automobile Toddler Alerting System (ATAS)
We have heard on numerous occasions in the news and on television talk shows for many years of how stressed-out parents forget that their toddlers are behind them strapped in car seats, as required by state laws, while they are driving on the road. The system we have conceptualized and devised fills in the gap of this human weakness. It first turns a switch ON, (located between the bottom of the car seat and the base frame, when the car seat is fastened to the base frame which takes the human element of forgetting to turn the switch ON out of the way. If the system functions the way it was intended to do, it alerts the adult driver in the following situations:
a. If the driver forgets that there is a baby in the back and opens the driver side door to go out to run errands, the system would detect if the car door is opened and if the switch beneath the car seat is turned ON after the baby and the car seat are first placed in the car turning the switch ON earlier. When these two conditions are met, the LCD display will show a blinking text that says “Baby On Board” and the Piezo speaker would announce the same thing, “Baby on board”, there by alerting the parent not to leave the baby behind.
b. If the parent is driving on the freeway and forgets that there is a baby in the back while the driver side door is closed and the inside temperature climbs above 75º F, the system would detect if the switch under the car seat is turned ON along with the temperature sensor detecting high temperatures. If these conditions are met, the LCD display and the speaker would announce that there is “Baby on Board + High Temperature” alerting the parent to turn the AC on and the motor by the window shade would be activated to roll it down to provide cover for the toddler from exposure to sun rays.

2. Inspiration
At first, there were two competing ideas originated by two of our team members, Andriy Koval and Matewos Sebsibe. Mr. Koval presented the idea of building a solar cell panel affixed on top of a ‘smart’ pole that would swivel up and down or sideways depending on the direction where the most amount of light comes from, aided by light detectors. The second one was the idea of Mr. Sebsibe, in which after much deliberation and processing the projects through a project selection criteria, in accordance with our core beliefs, we have selected Mr. Sebsibe’s ATAS system as our project.

Some core beliefs of our team members adopted from our department’s engineering rubrics
• Translate academic theory into engineering applications.
• Learn, build and use technology to make life better for society.
• Implement the utmost quality control for the safety of the users of our technological devices.

Project Selection Criteria
A. It doesn’t involve robots, RFID, voice or optical recognitions which are above our heads and would consume lots of time to figure out. We want to be able to finish the following in 7 weeks:
1. The project itself
2. Test it
3. Do the report
4. Practice presentation
B. Using only what we have learned so far in this college, we want to be able to easily ask professors questions and refer to our previous class notes if needed. Being a capstone class, there are things it is not using such as gears, levers, air pressurized pipes, etc

3. Resources –
Equipment Resources – material parts we have assembled with specifications in the table below are as follows: fan, wires, LCD display, temperature sensor from Parallax.com, piezo speaker, push button switches, Basic
Stamp II microcontroller, Gateway laptop with serial port, digital multimeter, digital tester, different IC
Chips, resistors, capacitors and diodes to be determined during final phase of the project.

Conclusion
We believe that this project has practical applications in addition to having the potential for industrial production. It is centered in the mission of most engineering endeavors which is using technology to solve society’s problems.