The Campaign

The insight is that what children learn at an early age often stay with them for life. On its own, this may not seem like an insight, but from the perspective of driving, a subject alien to children, it stands out. The purpose of ‘The Safet(o)y Car’ is to instil the principles of safe driving into children at a young age. This is done through transforming the stereotypical toy car into ‘The Safet(o)y Car’ – a car that can be driven through a smartphone app. When children drive it too fast, or into obstacles, pre-recorded safety messages are recited in real time. Through ‘The Safet(o)y Car’, we are innovating to create two new mediums. First, a toy that uses metacognition learning techniques to instil safe driving habits during a child’s formative years. Secondly, the children themselves become an advocate for safety, repeating the messages to their parents as they drive.

Creative Execution

‘The Safet(o)y Car’ will be controllable via Bluetooth through a free app for Android or iOS, which allows the child to use a smartphone in the same way he would use a remote control to drive the car. Through the main MCU, • The Motor Driver Power Manipulation MCU and Accelerometer power the car’s movement, while monitoring its different states of linear motion. • The relevant safety warning, stored on the SD Card Module, is then triggered and output through the Audio Amp & Lineout The main platform used is Arduino open-source, along with the other programmable electronic components also based on open-source hardware. The other equipment is based on analogue circuit designs and the structure of the car can be 3D printed using liquid nylon. As a result of using these open-source Internet of Things (IoT) platforms, we were allowed the flexibility to develop the system according to our requirements. At present, the innovation is merely at prototype stage.

The very long term implications of the product are to instil these safe driving messages in the minds of young children, who will then continue to practice the same as they become adults. The full development of the prototype took four days, with testing procedure taking one extra day. The prototype development procedure is based on Arduino platform, but when it comes to scale manufacture, ‘The Safet(o)y Car’ can be remodelled by ATMEL AVR microcontrollers. The implementation of ‘The Safet(o)y Car’ is planned to be the first phase of the project, with work already begun on the long term plan, where the Arduino Nano technology will be used to impart the same features as the current prototype onto a ‘toy car badge’ sized chip. By extending the technology to a badge through nanotechnology, it can increase scalability by attaching to any remote controlled toy car.

By transforming a simple toy car, part and parcel of every child’s toy box, this work aims to create a new media to instil its messages of safety to future drivers, at a formative age. ‘The Safet(o)y Car’ incorporates voice clips stored on board the car via an MMC card. It comprises of hardware and software that monitor the different states of linear motion, triggering relevant safety messages which are then relayed to the child in real time, providing metacognition learning opportunities.