A COST-EFFECTIVE CAMERA and sensor system developed by three students from Kilkenny detects when drivers break red lights and sends a photo of their number plate directly to gardaí.
Muireann Greene, Annabel Campion and Faye De Breit of Coláiste Pobail Osraí, a gaelscoil in Kilkenny town, aimed to come up with a deterrent so that drivers think twice about pushing the accelerator when approaching a red light.
Their project is one of 550 exhibits from 225 schools competing for a range of prizes at this year’s BT Young Scientist and Technology event at the RDS in Dublin.
They came up with the idea after they experienced many drivers running red lights on their way to school. The group told The Journal that, sometimes, they had to jump back onto the path to avoid being hit.
Using a ‘raspberry pi’ – a small, single-circuit board computer – as well as a sensor, a small camera and python code, Greene, Campion and De Breit programmed their very own traffic camera for less than €200.
The small computer connects to the traffic light and arms itself, the camera and the sensor once it detects that red light has been turned on. Any car that passes by the sensor when the red light is on will have its image taken.
Green, Campion and De Breit programmed a short code – using information freely available online and using AI – that then stores the image in a database after automatically blurring any faces that may be in the picture.
The image is then immediately sent to a local garda station.
“I live beside a traffic light, opposite the school we went to,” Greene said. “There was a lot of incidents – where we’d even call the police – where people would be speeding, but there was nothing to catch their reg. There was no way of them tracking down.
“It was great when we came up with this because it was a way that we’d be able to catch them,” she added.
The group also conducted a survey of drivers in Kilkenny, finding that a small number of people had admitted to breaking a red light from time to time. Others said they had seen drivers run red lights while they were on the road.
During their research, the group stood beside a set of traffic lights in their local town for an hour and found that two drivers chose to run the red light.
All three plan to keep going with the project, and hope to help in some way towards the planned rollout of red-light cameras later this year. The group said they would ask more drivers about their behaviour, and iron out some technical difficulties.
More than 2,000 projects were submitted to this year’s Young Scientist, seeking a place on the exhibition floor at the RDS in Ballsbridge. Over the next three days, 85 judges will choose projects that will win one of the 200 prizes that are on offer.
Students are aiming to win the €7,500 grand prize of Young Scientist of the Year and other awards in their respective categories.
Members of the public can visit the exhibition from tomorrow and a number of acts will be hosted in the venue until Saturday. The overall winner, and some international awards, will be announced on Friday evening.
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