Lance Cassidy, Alex Bodnarchuk, and Kathryn Asad with their mentor, Associate Professor of Industrial Design Bong-Il Jin.
At the New York International Auto Show in April, organizers were somewhat embarrassed at the College’s overwhelming success in their traffic safety design contest, asking at least one of the winners, Kathryn Asad (MID 2010), not to mention her school’s name when accepting her award: College of Design students had placed first, second, third, and fifth in the competition.
Asad’s first-place design, called Curtair, uses a car’s compressor to blast air through small nozzles in a wheel’s well, minimizing water on the tires and preventing hydroplaning.
Second place was awarded to Alex Bodnarchuk (MID 2010) for Slipvision, a method of illuminating black ice using ultraviolet LED lights on roads that have been treated with, of all things, quinine.
Lance Cassidy’s (MID 2011) solution —external airbags that anticipate and reduce the severity of collisions—garnered third place.
And Flexheat, which utilizes durable solar panels in a road surface to prevent ice from forming, won fifth place for Ali Sutton-Settemi (BID 2010).
Together, in addition to the free plane fare and accommodations in New York City, the group racked up $10,000 in prize money, with a quarter of it going to the College.
Image courtesy of Kathryn Asad
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