Newton North HS has formed an InvenTeam, becoming one of 16 schools nationwide to win a $10,000 grant for its team’s invention — a Pedestrian Alert System. Following the lead of the World Health Organization, the Newton North team focused on road safety and found that Ethiopia has among the highest road traffic fatalities per vehicle. The team’s invention warns drivers in developing countries of crossing pedestrians. This grant can be used for experimenting and prototyping, but not production, so the team is now raising funds for actual fabrication. See NewtonSTEM’s writeup for details.
On March 28 at 5PM, the InvenTeam will present its invention to the public in Room 121 (Design & Visual Communications Technology Lab) of Newton North HS. The objective is to inform the Newton community and to seek local sponsors.
This has been an amazing opportunity for Newton North High School and the kids involved. The project started out as the brain child of Ms. Brooks and several of her students who were then, high school juniors. Over the summer, it became a labor of love and dedication that was rewarded by being recognized and chosen by the MIT Lemelson InvenTeam program for a grant!
I have been so impressed with the leadership skills, presentation and teamwork that have been demonstrated by these students, who have now grown to include several juniors, a sophomore and a freshman (my daughter).
To have the opportunity to present their invention in full prototype form at MIT’s EurekaFest is an opportunity of a lifetime. Depending on the feasibility of their technology and fabrication, there are plans for the next step to build a pilot in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
There is a real need for this technology and system. By reducing the cost and resources needed to build this self sustaining, self contained pedestrian signal system … these high school students will not only provide a more affordable way to provide a safer environment in countries like Ethiopia, but it would open new opportunities and solutions for communities right here in the US as communities struggle to deal with the cost of pedestrian safety.
Do come see what they’ve been doing! Do show your support for Newton North innovation!! Please donate to http://www.NNHSIvenTeam.com now!!
Thank you, in advance!
Dang! I missed an “n” in that URL. It’s http://nnhsinventeam.com … Thanks!
According to NewtonSTEM, the invention will be presented to interested viewers on Thursday, March 28, at Newton North. See http://ournewton.org/content/come-see-nnhs-inventeams-life-saving-invention.
Yes, I know the norm is to just say how wonderful, talented, motivated, save-the-worldish these kids are…but dare I ask, why are Ethiopians among the most traffic accident prone people on earth? Can’t they figure out a solution on their own to such a simple problem?
I can’t quite figure out what the invention is, but if it’s anything more than an educational program (which is what the rest of the world gets) that says to pedestrians something like, “Look both ways,” and to drivers, “Don’t drive into those things that are crossing in front of you,” it’s overkill.
Why do I get the feeling this is a Rube Goldberg-type solution to a simple problem?
Not to say this is a bad thing for Ethiopia but I am fairly certain we need some of whatever they come up with in Newton Highlands, Newton Center, Newtonville, Newton Corner etc not to mention Boston… Granted 10k won’t go as far here and is unlikely to save the number of lives it would in Ethiopia…
Geez Jeff, that’s a pretty cranky response. These kids are Design & Visual Communications students taking advantage of an opportunity to put their design, engineering, and marketing skills to real-world use to help solve a real problem. Do you have any backround knowledge of road, traffic, infrastructure, cultural, or other issues in Ethiopia? Don’t developed countries like the U.S. have more than just “education” – things like crosswalks and electronically controlled traffic and pedestrian signals? I have no connection to this program or group of kids, but I checked out their website and the process they’ve gone through is pretty cool, including working with a partner school in Ethiopia. You really should learn more about them, the program, and the problem they are trying to address through their work: http://nnhsinventeam.com/about-us/
Tricia:
Just as expected, you’ve managed to miss the point. Yes, the experience is great for the Newton kids. They’re learning to develop this and that, prototyping, etc.
But what else are we teaching them? That Ethiopians as so backwards, so dumb, they can’t figure out on their own how to cross the street! The rest of the world grasps traffic lights, but that’s too complicated for them. Really???
We’re teaching our kids that third world problems require a bunch of 1st world high school students to solve them for them. It’s great for liberal, white, upper class guilt, but it instills in our kids and the Ethiopians an acceptance of a permanent state of dependence. That’s not good for Ethiopians. They need to learn to stand on their own two feet, particularly when the issue is one so totally solvable by themselves.
The project focus (traffic safety) and location (Ethiopia) was chosen by the project team. One of the NNHS students leading the project is a native Ethiopian. I don’t think it is likely that this student suffers from “liberal white guilt”. Probably also doesn’t believe that Ethiopians are “dumb” or “backward”, so unlikely to have conveyed that to the group. Please learn more about the team, the project, and problem they are trying to address before assuming you know more about it than they do – here’s a more detailed article in the school paper: http://thenewtonite.com/?p=19670
Tricia:
ARE YOU KIDDING!!!
Did you actually read the story you linked to? If this isn’t the definition of Rube Goldberg, I don’t know what is!
Prior to your giving me the link I searched in the other available material to see exactly what it was they were designing. It was never clear. A lot of talk about prototypes, demonstrations, but no explanation about e) the problem or b) what the actual proposed solution was.
Now that I know it’s…ridiculous. Blinking lights, motion sensors, etc. Ridiculous. Lots of fun to design, but a totally useless solution. Ridiculous.
Isn’t anyone going to sit these kids down and talk to them about practical solutions to simple problems? A complete waste of grant money.
Jeff, the simple answer to your question is that education alone will not save lives fast enough. This isn’t a question of intelligence, it is a question of exposure and the introduction of a technology that is so lethal into a community that hasn’t had and doesn’t have the time to adapt while the deaths rack up.
The World Health Organization estimates that by 2015 (that’s in two years), vehicular accidents will be the number one cause of death among people ages 5-45 in developing countries. It already surpasses Cancer, AIDS and Malaria combined. Even with education, every day needs some times surpasses better judgement … think of the young man that got killed trying to get to work at McDonalds over by Rte 16. I’m sure he realized it was risky to cross I95 but he was late for work and it looked to be the fast way from point A to point B.
Checkout the video on the http://www.NNHSInvenTeam.com website … and you’ll see that a typical road in Addis Ababa looks a lot like the main strip in Vegas except without all the stop lights between pedestrian bridges. I can easily imagine that if everyone were limited to only crossing where there were overhead pedestrian bridges … there would be plenty of people thinking they could just “skip across” the 6 lanes of vehicles and I’ll bet we’d have a lot more pedestrian deaths there too.
The invention is a low cost, solar powered two-way feedback pedestrian cross signal. Sure, there is some concession to education involved, but the builk of it is actually quite simply using existing technology in another way. Why no one has put it together to form this solution is probably a good question. I suspect the motivation in industrialized countries like the US has not reached a critical point to be sufficient to press for its development.
Access to power and underground conduits are not as difficult to comeby, the government seems always to be able to find the funds to pay for something necessary for public safety and our population has been exposed to crossing streets for generations.
The crux of the matter is, as is the case in many of the developing countries, that automobiles and highways cropped up in Ethopia practically over night (in the past decade) where as the whole concept of fast motorized vehicles and development of roads actually grew more gradually over the past 80-90 years in industrialized countries. MOST of the population still do not have much exposure to cars … haven’t been in one and don’t drive one because they simply can’t afford it and don’t see the need for it.
Power is NOT that easy to come by therefore the cost of having to lay the work to laydown underground conduits to power any of the existing pedestrian signal systems would be cost prohibitive. Even if the power were available, the $20K-$40K to install these systems are beyond what many of these communities can afford. The expectation is that the cost to build these pedestrian signals would be half that if not even less.
And yes, as was noted above, while the motivation for such a solution is greater in developing countries, there would be plenty of benefits for such a system right here at home.
Oh, I don’t know Jeff – the folks at the Lemelson-MIT Program (http://web.mit.edu/invent/) seemed to think it was a promising enough proposal to award the grant, and they seem to know a thing or two about inventions.
Greer and Tricia:
Do you think the high level of accidents has anything to do with drivers, rather than pedestrians,having the right of way? The Newtonite story says police say 76% of fatal accidents are due to driver error. Perhaps it’s not error, but drivers exercising their “right” to drive where they want and everyone else had best get out of the way.
Talk about Rube Goldberg…(this from the Newtonite) “…pedestrians will swipe their hands under a motion sensor…then, a strip of red LED lights on the ground will illuminate to alert drivers that a pedestrian is waiting to cross. The system will incorporate a dual-sensor method that uses a processing platform to calculate the arrival time of an oncoming vehicle.”
And what about pedestrians who don’t cross where the motion sensor and LED lights are located? How many intersections are there in Addis Ababa? Multiply that number times four (four corners) as the number of installations required. How many million of dollars will all that cost?
You actually think this will have a greater impact on drivers than teaching them and pedestrians to obey a simple traffic light and issues summonses to those who run the light or cross against red?
“Then another part of the project is the creation of an educational component that the design students will launch before the installation of their invention.”
That’ll include a “website and online videos.” Really? People who don’t have the sophistication to learn how to use traffic lights are going to be online learning from educational videos!
Good luck.
Jeff, when I first heard about this project I was skeptical as well. I thought, what is so difficult about looking both ways and safely crossing a street? As I grew to learn more about the problem, I quickly realized the true need for this type of invention. Before criticizing the project itself, I think it would behoove you to first gain a complete understanding of the problem. Perhaps then you will be able to make an informed decision as to the invention’s value.
What seems incredibly odd to me is your view that this project belittles the intelligence and independence of people in other countries, while at the same time perpetuating exactly that same projection yourself. I am sure that the many families who have lost loved ones to traffic accidents in Ethiopia as well as every other country in the world would be less than thrilled with your level of sensitivity. Your allegation that “liberal, white, upper class guilt” is the motivating factor here displays your astounding lack of comprehension for both the invention and more importantly, the students who are developing it.
Imaginably, your local street signs and traffic signals serve you well on a daily basis, but please remember that other people may live differently than you do. To dismiss this design project as a Rube Goldberg machine is to diminish the value of each and every life lost to vehicular accidents. Until you have experienced a society in which even crossing the street safely is a luxury, please spare us the soapbox.
If your presumptuous attitude were to prevail throughout the human race, there would be a severe lack of advancement in the world. “Why attempt to improve upon an already existing solution? If it works for some people, then maybe I should just accept that it is good enough.” With this strangely limited and truly ambitionless view of the world, perhaps we would all be riding horses to work and writing books by candlelight. Who needs an iPhone with all of those ridiculous blinking lights and motion sensors anyway? It must have been tons of fun for Apple to design, but I have a telephone at home that is perfectly capable.
Jeff, you seem like a thoughtful individual. However, the very questions you are asking show you are at a primitive level of research through which the students have already worked. They are in close communication with a sister school in Addis Ababa as well as numerous native Ethiopian mentors. From what I have seen online, none of your concerns are news to them.
I am glad that institutions such as MIT still find value in progress and innovation, and are willing to support young minds towards that goal. As such, maybe you will consider attending the Lemelson-MIT EurekaFest on June 19-23, 2013. Along with a multitude of world-renowned and prolific inventors, Newton North’s InvenTeam will be there to present the finalized version of their prototype.
Absolutely. We are talking about a society where both the pedestrians and drivers are still on a steep learning curve. I do think these accidents are the result of both inexperienced drivers as well as inexperienced pedestrians.
This is a very good question and perhaps key to why I think you don’t understand the issue. Again, I will point to the video of Addis Ababa that is on the http://www.nnhsinventeam.com website here.
The key is that the footbridges are very far apart because they are costly to build. Therefore there are long stretches where there is no way to cross the road. This idea of a less expensive signal system is that it would be affordable to build more of them and therefore be closer together and lessen the temptation to simply cross the street, but to go to a safer place to cross. We do this in the US. We wouldn’t have such long stretches without a way to cross, yet we expect them to.
These 4-6 lane roadways are not like our stretches of highways where there is nothing on either side of the road. These are roads equivalent to our Village centers, except there is a highway running through the middle of it. I simply point to The Strip in Las Vegas where the roadsides are jam packed with destinations and if one had to walk 20 mins out of the way to cross and come back 20 mins just to get to the other side of the street, I imagine we’d have a lot more pedestrian accidents in Las Vegas as well.
Did the kids have a little fun in introducing some art and a “hand swipe” trigger? Sure. Does it unnecessarily add to the cost of the system? No. Should it take away the value this would provide to a community like Addis Ababa? No.
I’m happy to walk through all your concerns and questions of “why don’t they just …” and I am fairly positive that you will eventually see what a simple solution this is to a very very serious problem we are facing. No one said this invention was hard or complicated. It’s just new.
Daniel:
Thanks for the sermon.
Now tell me why off-the-shelf crossing signals won’t solve the problem.
Having read Greer’s comments and viewed the video, etc., the same question to her…why won’t off-the-shelf crossing signals work in Addis Ababa?
Computer controlled traffic lights are expensive to install in Newton, but non-computer lights and simple push button crossing signals would be cheap in Ethiopia.
Why do these people need us to solve their problems for them? It’s noblesse Oblige.
Jeff – if one of the team members is from Ethiopia and wanted this project, why doesn’t it count as Ethiopians using outside resources to help them solve problems that are important to them?
@Jeff — Because, to date, all the off the shelf crossing signals seem to require underground conduits to bring in power and nearby electrical source is rather difficult to come by and the cost of digging up all the ground is expensive as well as the cost to continue to supply that power. The systems were designed with the assumption of an infrastructure that doesn’t exist in most developing countries except perhaps in major cities.
The key is the solar power and the arduino chip that isn’t an all powerful computer, but it has enough intelligence to control traffic.
Folks:
Rather than defend what the kids are doing, however well intentioned, take the time to look beyond the intention and ask whether it’s actually helping. Remember, the bottom line is there are lives at stake. Are we playing inventor, or are we actually helping?
In that regard, ask yourself a couple of common sense questions:
1. Do they really need us to figure out how to cross the streets safely? No.
2. If that’s not the problem, what is?
Now, stop defending and start learning. Google “Ethiopian traffic accidents.”
The first response is from AllAfrica.com, a news consolidator. It shows an editorial from the Ethiopian Press Agency in Addis Ababa. It says, (my underlining):
“Kassahun Haile-Mariam, Director General of Road Transport Authority (RTA), said his office is preparing a plan to mitigate vehicular accidents, which is worsening from time to time. He made the remark during the third national conference of transportation consultants. Participants of the forum have identified causes accounting for the soaring and alarming rate of VA. To mention but a few, inefficiency of drivers, night travel, over speeding, driving under the influence of Khat and alcohol and poor vehicle technical fitness are the major causes. The forum also discussed drawbacks related to road traffic law enforcement.”
Not a word about lack of pedestrian crossing controls or signals.
In CapitalEthiopia.com, in an article titled, “Traffic safety week attempts to raise awareness,” the causes of Ethiopia’s high accident rate are described:
“A press conference about car safety week was held on Thursday April 5th at Radisson Blu Hotel where it was emphasized that most accidents happen due to speeding and changing lanes without warning. Studies show that most fatalities occur because of not being able to get quick medical attention.”
Again, not a word about pedestrian signals.
Other articles talk about the lack of required liability insurance, lack of radar guns, lack of hospitals, civilians who drag people to the hospital without waiting for an ambulance, etc.
Nowhere is there any reference to pedestrian traffic signals.
It’s fun to play inventor. But if you want to solve a problem, help people, save lives, the first step is to research the problem and identify the causes. And if you think you know what the problem is, but common sense tells you it doesn’t seem plausible, the second step is to do a reality check and get others involved who don’t have a vested interest in confirming the original hypothesis.
Another key to inventing is to see what other people are not seeing. The kids have been doing their research. They spent a whole year researching before coming up with this idea.
You’re right, Jeff. It is curious that no one has suggested the obvious .. that if there was a way to make it easier for pedestrians to cross safely … it would help many of the other issues. I am sure that if it were glaringly obvious that cheaper pedestrian signals would help … many professionals would already be working on this solution before these high school students ever would have tripped over it.
Part of being an inventor is seeing a solution that others are overlooking.
This is a creative process. These are High School students. Not every idea is going to be production worthy. How many inventions never make it past the prototype stage? But this is the way we make progress.
That said, I still think that this idea *is* worthy and has many practical uses. Would you feel better if it wasn’t intended for Ethiopia and they were just planning to install one here in Newton? As you heard, the cost of a pedestrian signal is often the barrier to getting one at an intersection where it is needed … I was just talking to the Traffic Director last night and he cites the cost to installing a new pedestrian signal as a real challenge for some neighborhoods where it is clearly needed. Where will we get the funds?
Inexpensive solar powered pedestrian signals would be useful. Period. That the situation in Addis Ababa is what motivated these kids to come up with this idea happens to also bring light and awareness to the situation in developing countries. I’m amazed that so many people seem so surprised that vehicular accidents cause more deaths than all the diseases we seem to champion. I wonder if the fact that vehicular accidents is a man made threat is causing our blind spot. Regardless … bringing the awareness to our community is a benefit as well. What is wrong with that?
I am really curious as to why this has struck such a nerve for you. The system is a good idea. That it happens to also address a rather serious problem in the world is also good. No one is expecting the people of Ethiopia to be eternally grateful or anything. I respect you a lot, Jeff and am really puzzled why all this is so upsetting to you.
Greer:
It upsets me that the kids have been told that they’re on the right track and that the people of Ethiopia need them. First, they don’t appear to be on the right track, and second, Ethiopia doesn’t need them. Other than that, everything is hunky dory.
Solar powered devices aren’t exactly new.
You wrote, “… It is curious that no one has suggested the obvious .. that if there was a way to make it easier for pedestrians to cross safely …”
Perhaps you didn’t read any of the information I provided in my last comment. There’s not a shred of information suggesting that pedestrian crossing safety is contributing to the number of accidents in Addis Ababa.
I don’t expect to change anything about this project. But my insistence in presenting my position is so that the kids involved hear another voice, one that takes a critical look at what they’re doing and gives them something other than pandering support.