Did you know that about 6000 people in the USA die every year because of drowsiness while driving, and about 5000 people die every year because they are on a call while driving? When my family goes on a long drive, my mom always has to keep talking to my dad to make sure he does not fall asleep. She also cheers my dad up when he is upset while driving. In this case, she is my dad’s Drive Buddy. I think that all the safety detection mechanisms already there in vehicles must also use AI using images from the cameras installed inside the vehicle to create a completely reliable safety system for the driver and the inmates of the vehicle.
Drive Buddy is a simulation program written in PictoBlox, which uses your camera to detect and warn you if you are on a call, or sleeping. It also gives you the option to drive to a coffee shop if you are sleepy. Drive Buddy also acts like a real buddy by analyzing your mood using your facial expressions and cheering you up with jokes and music if you are angry or sad. There were many PictoBlox features I had fun with while making my project. I used the Machine learning extension to make pose models for the driver using Teachable Machine, and the Face Detection extension for the driver’s mood detector. I also recorded messages in my own voice for Drive Buddy and had fun with the Text to Speech extension to make Drive Buddy talk like a real person. I would like to share Drive Buddy with different car companies so that they can think of adding this feature to their cars.