Colorado’s Department of Transportation reports nearly 4,000 vehicle crashes involving wildlife every year, resulting in injuries to humans and fatalities to wildlife, and an estimated $80 million in property damage. The collisions involve small mammals, elk, bear, and moose, though the vast majority are deer, the DOT says.
No surprise then, that Colorado is home to four aspiring computer science engineers, high school girls in fact, who last year began working on a device that detects a deer in a vehicle’s path and sends out a warning to the driver.
Last year, as three sophomores and a freshman, they won their state’s Samsung Solve for Tomorrow award, which earned their school $12,000 to help pay for a working prototype of their Project Deer device as they continue the project this year.
