CCDS InvenTeam November Blog
As a team, and beyond that, a community, Cincinnati Country Day School is incredibly honored to receive the Lemelson-MIT InvenTeam Grant. We are so excited to utilize this opportunity to help road bikers and drivers. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, in the United States, about 1,000 people die and 130,000 are injured yearly in bike accidents. According to the National Safety Council, the number of preventable deaths from biking incidents increased 44% from 2011-2020. Our invention is aimed at increasing awareness between bikers and drivers sharing roads, and by doing so, decreasing the number of road-biking accidents.
Because our goal is to help as many people as possible, we decided it was crucial to get input from a variety of road bikers. We started within our school community, which has a close connection to road biking after the loss of Mr. Fred Carey, a former teacher who was struck by a car while road biking. We interviewed faculty members and surveyed community members, asking questions like where and when they bike, what their safety concerns are, and what other safety devices they might have tried. We also asked them to share their stories about road biking and found that nearly all of them had been involved in a close call of some sort. This information will help us design a product that fits the concerns of bikers and addresses reoccurring safety issues.
Technical team
To get the team on the same page from a technical standpoint, one of the first things we worked on was learning how to solder. Each team member, including the members of the other sub-teams, soldered components onto a circuit board to power LED lights. This activity was led by Alex Back, the technical team lead. Following our decision as a team to finalize the invention idea, the technical team immediately began working with the financial team on creating a comprehensive list of materials that we would need. This included lab-safety equipment, and various circuit-related devices/components.
In concurrence with the creation and ordering of the product list, the technical team also worked up ideas to test the invention. After receiving feedback from the judges that we were unable to conduct human testing, the technical team had to figure out a way to effectively test our invention. After researching various pre-existing methods of testing without human subjects, the technical team decided to create their own testing device utilizing the materials in the CCDS Makerspace. The team created a preliminary testing device for the invention to rest upon that mimics the dimensions and movements of a bicycle. The technical team will continue to work on the means for testing the invention. As lab-safety equipment and components for the device begin to arrive, the technical team will begin the construction of a prototype.
Communications
After announcing our accomplishment of receiving the grant, we had meaningful and productive interactions with various community press outlets. Our first news interview was with WCPO and happened in mid-October. The segment highlighted the recent announcement and gave viewers brief insight into our invention process and goals. Shortly after, we recorded a segment with Fox19 News. This featured interviews with two of our team members and focused on the student-led aspect of InvenTeams. Both opportunities of connecting with local news allowed us to share our goals with more community members and share gratefulness for the Lemelson-MIT InvenTeams program. Among our immediate school community, we spoke in an all-high school assembly about receiving the grant. The students and teachers alike were greatly excited and proud to have this achievement attached to the school’s name. From the beginning of the school year, we have been updating students and faculty on our work and will continue to do so throughout the entire invention process.
The team also reached out to graphic designers in the community to help with branding and blogging. Lori Smith, former PA president and parent, walked the team through the basics of graphic design. The team learned the purpose of a creative brief, how colors, fonts, and creativity lead to effective designs, and how to decide on a final design. Additionally, our recent graduate gave an overview of Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop and demonstrated some techniques to alter text, drawings, and images in the software. Through all of this, we must maintain some secrecy so as not to expose too much information about our invention. In the upcoming months, we plan to continue involvement with news, social media, and events in order to educate others on our problem statement.
