The beginnings of an idea...

As I have mentioned this module now requires us to make a project that uses an Arduino board as well as low tech actuators and senors to interact with people in the area. As we had already been focusing on light as a factor last term, this definitely seemed to be the right route to take the project.

We were aiming to use traffic lights as the trigger for the sensor, but as we heard many of the students in other groups were also planning to use them, so we came up with car headlights. If we could pinpoint a spot where car headlights hit every time they passed on their journey along a road, we could place our sensor there.

We then started bouncing more ideas around and came up with how we were going to interact with the drivers of the cars. If we used the sensor to turn on a projector once it was exposed to light, we could project an image on another wall to attract drivers attention as they pass by. The nice thing about this is that it would be triggered by the drivers lights, so it would only be on as long as they passed by. The fact that theres nothing, then suddenly an image appears, and once they pass by its gone again should be enough to get their attention.

As good as this sounded to us, we then realised as effective as it may be, may not be so wise to attempt to attract the drivers attention from the road on purpose...so we decided maybe a good idea to find a spot where the headlights hit while the car was stationary, this way the car driver or any of the surrounding would not be in danger. We also decided we were more likely to catch their attention as they wouldn't be so focused on the road, giving our projection more of a chance to be seen.