Design of An Infant Car Seat with a Cooling System and Alert System for the Safety of an Infant Left in a Car

School Name

Spring Valley High School

Grade Level

11th Grade

Presentation Topic

Engineering

Presentation Type

Non-Mentored

Abstract

In recent years, there have been cases of children being left in enclosed vehicles and dying due to hyperthermia. In 2021, there were 23 deaths due to children being left in cars (Hot car deaths, 2022). Fifty-four percent of children are forgotten in vehicles thus, a solution should be developed to save the lives of the infants (Hazizan et al., 2020). The purpose of this study is to design, prototype, and test an alert and cooling system for an infant car seat to prevent these deaths. The engineering goal for this project was to combine two existing systems: one functional alert system and one functional cooling system. The design used thermoelectric coolers, a passive infrared motion sensor, a GSM module, and an Arduino. The thermoelectric coolers were connected to heatsinks which cooled the car seat at 26 degrees celsius. And at 25 degrees celsius, the alert system sent an alert using the GSM module. Then, the design was tested in a car by simulating the high temperatures by setting the air conditioning to high. The results of the study showed that the cooling system was able to reduce the temperature of the car seat from 26 degrees celsius relatively down to 23 degrees. Furthermore, the alert system also was successful on all the trials made sending a text to the experimenter. Based on these results, the design produced in this study showcases proof of concept to cool an infant in a car seat and to send an alert to the responsible adult.

Location

BS 302

Start Date

3-25-2023 9:15 AM

Presentation Format

Oral and Written

Group Project

No

COinS
 
Mar 25th, 9:15 AM

Design of An Infant Car Seat with a Cooling System and Alert System for the Safety of an Infant Left in a Car

BS 302

In recent years, there have been cases of children being left in enclosed vehicles and dying due to hyperthermia. In 2021, there were 23 deaths due to children being left in cars (Hot car deaths, 2022). Fifty-four percent of children are forgotten in vehicles thus, a solution should be developed to save the lives of the infants (Hazizan et al., 2020). The purpose of this study is to design, prototype, and test an alert and cooling system for an infant car seat to prevent these deaths. The engineering goal for this project was to combine two existing systems: one functional alert system and one functional cooling system. The design used thermoelectric coolers, a passive infrared motion sensor, a GSM module, and an Arduino. The thermoelectric coolers were connected to heatsinks which cooled the car seat at 26 degrees celsius. And at 25 degrees celsius, the alert system sent an alert using the GSM module. Then, the design was tested in a car by simulating the high temperatures by setting the air conditioning to high. The results of the study showed that the cooling system was able to reduce the temperature of the car seat from 26 degrees celsius relatively down to 23 degrees. Furthermore, the alert system also was successful on all the trials made sending a text to the experimenter. Based on these results, the design produced in this study showcases proof of concept to cool an infant in a car seat and to send an alert to the responsible adult.