Overall, our goals for this week were to research which specific parts we wanted to use, research how to apply CV/ML algorithms, begin designing the web application, and start working on the slides for our design presentation. Next week (according to our gantt chart) we will finalize all aspects of our initial project design and complete the design presentation slides. We will also continue researching facial detection algorithms and order components/begin initial testing on any that arrive.
To answer the additional question for this week, our project includes considerations for public safety, environmental safety, and cultural factors. The overall project goal to monitor distracted driving practices and relay feedback to drivers to reduce unsafe behaviors promotes public safety (both for the driver and others on the road). Additionally, we are considering privacy concerns by making each user’s distracted driving data only available to them, with no feature to view others’ data on the web application. Although less directly related, we are also considering cultural factors in the sense that this product (if widely adopted) could create increased awareness for what constitutes distracted driving and could bring about a cultural shift in driving behavior.
At this point, the most significant risk that could jeopardize the success of our project is not having a concrete plan on approaching the project with well-thought out hardware and software component selections. To mitigate this, we are each doing individual research and then discussing as a group all aspects of our design before finalizing it. Our design proposal presentation is the most important part of our project to get right to reduce later headaches and set us up for success for the rest of the semester. Further along the line, the risk that we are most concerned about is our ability to tune our chosen algorithm to accommodate low-light conditions and obstructions to viewing the driver’s eyes (e.g. sunglasses or a hat). We are attempting to best mitigate this risk by planning for 4 weeks of testing and tuning the algorithm and an additional 3 weeks of slack time at the end of our schedule.
So far, no significant changes have been made from the user and technical requirements and general hardware and software components that we presented in our proposal presentation. After we receive feedback next week on our proposal presentation, we are expecting that there may be some changes that we will have to make. We are currently on track with our initial schedule.