Weekly Reflection

Lately I have been working on the prototype, the original prototype from last year, lets call it prototype 1.0, was the more complicated version that was meant to demonstrate the LED grid on the side of a basic 4 inch round brake light. It didn't include the momentum switch to demonstrate the loss of momentum and it wasn't all that pretty to look at but it was a effective way to demonstrate how our product would work.

Prototype 2.0 was a horrible failure, mainly due to the insane amount of effort put into finding a accelerometer that would be sensitive enough to pick up on any loss of speed, so I ended up taking one out of my old phone. I didn't notice how sensitive it was until i actually hooked it up. It turned on every time the surface wasn't level, when the vehicle accelerated, when it stopped, went up or down hill, and eventually the accelerometer itself burnt out because the I was using more voltage than it was made for. How was I supposed to know how much voltage it could handle? not like it came with any directions I took it out of a phone. So prototype 2.0 was trashed, well not entirely only the accelerometer part was and most of the housing for it as well.

Prototype 3.0, what can I say, it was a stroke of simplicity, i got rid of all the complicated parts, got rid of the LED grid to gauge how quickly the vehicle is slowing down (we decided it would be better if the whole brake light would turn rather than LED's on the side since it could be confusing), we also trashed the entire shoe box holster and decided to go with something that would better demonstrate our venture. So we got a small remote control car drilled holes in the back for brake light and hooked it up to a home made accelerometer. Its not exactly pretty to look at but its better looking than a shoe box. But once more I hit another problem the lights I was using were the small Christmas tree lights and they burnt out pretty quickly, fortunately this problem can be solved easily through LED lights all i have to do is find some.