Senior Design Project

[Kenan.Clay]

I am a senior at the Science Academy of South Texas in Mercedes, Texas. I am currently enrolled in an Engineering Design and Development course which calls for the students to find a justified problem and work to develop the best possible solution. The problem that I am working with is the overheating of cars when left in the sun for a period of time and the dangers it poses to children. I have seen many new products come out that aid in reminding the parents that their children are in the vehicle. I myself wanted to work on the aspect of the child getting overheated. The first idea I had was to create a solution to lower the temperature in the entire vehicle. Instead, though, I wanted to design a sort of cooling system that could go into a child's car seat to keep the child cooler even during hot days when they are driving around. I was hoping someone could possibly aid me by sending any information available on whether or not this has been developed or point me to someone who might know something about how to design a cooling system in the child car seat.

[US Iceman]

Well, I understand why you want to do this but isn't this like closing the barn door after the horses have escaped?

I have seen many new products come out that aid in reminding the parents that their children are in the vehicle.

The best product I can think of is a big stick to beat the parents with for doing this in the first place.

Creating a product like this sets the tone for condoning such behavior.

As you can probably guess, my recommendation would be to look for aother product type to work on.

I don't mean to come across too strong on this, but this really burns me up (no pun intended) when parents treat kids this way.

[Brian_UK]

I agree with everything that Iceman says regarding this however.......

The base idea of providing a cooled child seat could be done by running cooling water through pipe loops built into the chair.

I would imagine that this has already been patented by people like NASA or even GM, Chevy etc, Rolls Royce.

Getting back to the car idea, pass, if you even tempt an adult to think that it is safe to leave a child in a hot car then fatalities will follow, you will have your ar$e before a judge and you will wish you hadn't had this idea at all.

[Kenan.Clay]

I realize that this could lead to more problems than it solves. What I plan on doing with the cooling system, though, is attaching a thermal sensor that would activate either when the car or child reached a certain temperature, which would activate the cooling system as well as setting off a type of car alarm. This would also work in case a parent locks a child in the car with the keys, as a cooling system could prevent hyperthermia in the child. Would it be a more feasible idea with the additon of the sensor?

[US Iceman]

Would it be a more feasible idea with the additon of the sensor?

Only if the sensor fires a taser at the parent for being stupid.

I realize you want to do a responsible project that helps, but I do not feel this is in the publics interest to pursue this.

[TSK]

Thankfully this idea is flawed at the most basic level, the heat generated within tha car is from Solar Gain which as we know is massive in an enclosed container surrounded by glass (these are some times called solar collectors) in your case we are talking cars. In order to transport the unwanted heat to a place of heat rejection requires considerable energy, now unless the errent parents are going to leave the engine running then what little energy a battery could provide will not last very long, as for circulating water through the seat, well do the maths, a large tank of pre-cooled water would be required.

[LRAC]

Hi Kenan.Clay

Forget the cooling system and go this way.

Do as Volvo do and fit weight sensitive sensors to all seats, if the seats are occupied an audible alarm ( on volvo's this is used to remind people the seat belts are not on) which triggers the main car alarm if the vehicle has the ignition swithed off for longer than a set time after removing the keys.

If the parents then forget about the kids they deserve to be shot or made to sit in a hot car themselves.

Kind regards
Lrac

[chillin out]

I can't believe this thread is running!!!!!!

Hows about a sensor in the seat that phones the police if such an event occurs?
This would prevent the child coming to any harm plus the added bonus of it never hapening again.

Chillin

[US Iceman]

I personally liked the idea of shooting a taser at the stupid parent.

[TSK]

Hi Chillin, totally in agreement with you, but this has got to be a joke, the worrying thing is that it's not from a first year student!