Seat Sentry

In the United States the leading cause of death in children is motor vehicle crashes. In 2011 more than 148,000 children were injured in crashes, with 650 deaths.

Properly installed child safety seats can reduce fatality by 71% in infants and 54% in toddlers. 96% of parents believe they have installed their car seats correctly, when in fact 75% of all child safety seats are not installed correctly.

The major problem is that safety car seats are very complicated to use with many different straps, and maneuvers to perform to install them correctly. 

Our team choose to address the most common mistakes of incorrect installation, incorrect tightness of the seat and straps, and use of an expired safety seat.

We built a system that gives the driver instant feedback on the safety seat installation and child restraints. It also communicates reminders about expiration dates and recalls. During installation the accelerometer determines if the seat is installed correctly. During vehicle operation we used the accelerometer on the wunder bar and the accelerometer on the drivers smartphone to determine improper movement of the car seat.

Our device can be affixed to any car seat and it interfaces with the users smart phone for both setup, reminders, and alerts. The device itself also plays music as feedback about issues that need to be corrected.

Our slide deck can be viewed here: http://goo.gl/lMLODG

App is live and can be viewed on any device: http://seatsentry.azurewebsites.net/