The Thales Arduino Challenge is a project for engineering students asking them the following: “Design a product that fits with the goal of Thales, using only an Arduino kit in two weeks.” Thales is a company developing products for the military, aerospace, security, and transportation industry and therefore the assignment allowed for a lot of creativity. Floor was one of about 10 ATLAS student who joined the project and together with 3 computer science students she designed the AR Bike.
AR Bike is a system with blinkers on the back of the bike that will show a turn signal when you are about to go around the corner or break lights when you have to stop. It also includes a navigation system that is connected to your smartphone that will help you with finding the way in a safe manner.
“Together with my teammates I quickly came up with the idea to create something to improve the safety of transportation by bike. Already the first day of the project, we decided on a plan and divided the tasks. I was mostly involved in designing the hardware; using Solid-Works and a 3D-printer I created the boxes for the blinkers and the navigation system. My teammates did most of the programming, as they were the experts on that part. The second week of the project we designed the video to present our product in the best way. The last days of the project I spent a lot of time on video-editing, because the winner would be chosen solely on the video.
Funny enough, my teammates decided that I could be the CEO of our ‘company’, because they thought Thales would like to see a woman in the video. Actually, maybe they were right, because we not only won the regional competition, but also the national competition!”
Floor and her team are still in the race to win a trip to one of the main offices of Thales; for example, the one in Hong Kong. However, to be able to win, they need your help! You can go to the Thales Arduino Challenge website and vote for their video ‘Team AR Bike’. Voting ends at February 28, afterwards a jury will choose the winner from the top 3 after voting.
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