Prototype
A DIY visibility improvement for where you walk
Many frequently-traveled pedestrian crossing areas are scary, but are (for many reasons) perhaps not well-suited for significant infrastructure change. There is a major gap in terms of cost and effectiveness between off-the-shelf DIY pedestrian safety hacks (signs) and government-approved projects (traffic signals or HAWK beacons), and we suffer because of this product shortfall.
I wanted to feel safer crossing here
And there are signs that other people want to feel safer here, too
Lots of signs indeed...
...lots and lots of signs...
There's also some sketchy crossings just a few blocks away at the Brentwood Farmer's Market
So they attempt to solve this by hiring a crossing guard (left) and putting some yellow crossing signs on the ground
Most DIY signage is ground level and hard to see. More importantly, it's not responsive (doesn't show real-time pedestrian activity)
I think we need solutions that are responsive to pedestrian activation (buttons), eye-catching (lights), and are lightweight (low infrastructure change)
For my initial design I wanted to: make some lights blink on both sides of a crossing when a button is pushed from either side, keep the project fairly DIY-able, and hold the materials budget to around $50.
Learning to solder with my new homie Mr. Helping Hands
Spending a lot of time in Arduino land
Rear of V0: ESP32 boards, battery banks, buck converters, and a mess of wires mounted on cardboard
Front of V0. For the next iteration, I wanted to separate the button component from the blinking and lighting component
A standalone V1 button component. Install this anywhere at the crossing and it will communicate wirelessly with both lighting components
Rear of the V1 lighting component
Inner electronics of the lighting component
All four components talk to each other
For the first test I just put the button component on a bollard, but it works anywhere within range (20-50 feet?)
It works! Many thanks to Ron for being our tester and model
V0 and V1 established the basic proof of concept. For V3, I want to make the system more robust and bring in creative collaborators to help move this project, and others like it, forward.
I’m actively looking for collaborators who want to help design products that make crossing the street feel safer, and actually be safer. Especially if you’re a: