Exploring the Future of Driving

Onramp 2014 was held on the weekend of December 6-7 at the San Mateo Event Center in the heart of Silicon Valley to explore the future of the car driving experience. 

Toyota sponsored this event order to explore the intersection of new technology and the driving experience. Designers and developers were invited to participate on Saturday in the Onramp Challenge, a hackathon with $10,000 top prize.  The Onramp conference was held on Sunday and combined demonstrations from the winning applications with talks from industry executives.

Our thanks to all who attended - it was a great event!

 

Congratulations to our Winners!

Twenty applications made it to the finish line for judging and we congratulate all who participated for their hard work and creativity.  Our panel of judges were impressed with the quality of the work but in the end picked the following as the best of the day!

We selected a grand prize winner and three category prize winners:

Grand Prize - The overall best application based on its innovation and use of Toyota data would win $10,000 from Toyota Motor Corporation.

Fun Prize – The application that best enhances the fun and emotion of the driving experience would win three PlayStation bundles from Sony Computer Entertainment America and Polyphony Studios.

Safety Prize – The application that most promotes the safety of the driving experience would win $2,000 from KDDI.

Efficiency Prize – The application that best promotes driving and transportation efficiency would win three Sony SmartWatch 3 and Xperia Z3 devices from Sony Mobile Communications.

Additional prizes were awarded directly to developers for their use of technology or participation in the event. Sumitomo Electric awarded one lucky developer a top of the line ultraportable laptop. Nippon-Seiki provided three sets of high performance Defi gauges that were in high demand among the professional drivers and car enthusiasts at the event!  And Kyosho gave Kyosho radio-controlled cars to the developers who integrated those cars into their application.

And with that let’s take a look at the winners!

 

Grand Prize Winner: Eye in the Sky

Drifting with drones... how sweet would that footage be? That's what Team Eye in the Sky set out to capture. This team programmed a drone to autonomously follow the Scion FR-S as it sped around the race course. The concept was that the drone could track the car's GPS feed, and capture live aerial video and telemetry data to be presented to spectators or even the driver (after the event). With this information, drivers can learn about their driving patterns, and improve their driving for the next pass.

The team consisted of:

• Nathan Schuett
• David Witt
• Steven Hung
• Ben Sebby
• Sho Hiruta
• Hakuei Huang

Safety Prize Winner: AWARE

AWARE brings a new level of safety to the driving experience. Using artificial emotion recognition software and an in-car camera, the application tracks driver's visual attention and monitors cognitive awareness and distraction. It then correlates the driver’s emotions with the vehicle performance. Based on that data, it computes a safety score that will serve as invaluable insight to Automotive OEM's and insurance companies. This score will also transform into a reward system with partnering companies. AWARE’s goal is to help improve safety on the roads and reduce the rate of accident.

The team consisted of:

• Emna Ghariani
• Ray Cervantes
• JR Alaoui
• Jayanth Kumar Voruganti
• Jesus Cagide

Fun Prize Winner: Interactive 86

Interactive 86 allowed drivers to play custom sound effects that were triggered by the car’s behavior.  Applications ranged from the fun to the serious with examples such as screeching tire noise as you turned to a siren warning when you drove too fast.

The team consisted of:

• Zhichao Wang
• Man Fai Kan
• Barney Hsiao

Efficiency Prize Winner: RACEme

Enthusiast drivers are interested in optimizing their performance on and off the track. The data provided by the CAN-Gateway ECU allows the visual comparison of race data including acceleration, braking, top speed, and other metrics critical to driving dynamics. This app allows drivers to compare these metrics on any route, regardless of location using time-matched GPS coordinates. Additional features allow the drivers to replay their routes as a race that matches their acceleration patterns at each point. The application is able to overlay the GPS coordinates of each driver to see who has the optimal line, steering angle, and other driver inputs.

Beyond enthusiasts, the applications allows any driver to review their driving patterns in order to plan their routes home. Future iterations of the software could enable sharing of routes between users in order to reduce commute times and improve fuel efficiency. For example, comparing two alternative routes home.

The team consisted of:

• Jeff Nucum
• Aaron Abajian

And that's a wrap!

Our congratulations and thanks to all who attended and supported this event! 

If you want to see what it looked like, we've posted a sampling of the pictures from the event at the Photos link below.