Thorpe Watch

Homepage
Homepage (live incident)
Timeline page
Info view
Vibration sensor & ESP32

Inspiration

Trucks keep getting stuck under the Bill Thorpe Walking Bridge overpass on Waterloo Row, and it's become kind of a local meme here. We wanted a project that was fun, showed our personalities, and was actually useful to people in Fredericton.

We were also inspired by McBroken, which tracks broken McDonald's ice cream machines. We liked how it's silly and useful at the same time.

What it does

Thorpe Watch counts the days since the last truck hit the overpass and keeps a timeline of past strikes. When our vibration sensor detects a new hit, the site switches to a live incident view with the time of impact, the closed roads and an interactive map, and emails everyone who subscribed. People can also report current and past incidents through our website.

How we built it

Frontend: Next.js and TypeScript, styled with Tailwind CSS, with a Leaflet map for road closures
Backend: Python and Flask. It checks the sensor's status in Supabase every couple of seconds, logs new strikes in SQLite, and emails subscribers
Hardware: an Arduino with a vibration sensor, as a proof of concept for something that could be attached to the bridge

We split the work across frontend, backend and hardware, then brought it all together into one app.

Frontend: Daniel and Kristyn · Backend: Khoi · Hardware: Phat

Challenges we ran into

Getting a detected hit to update the site reliably. Connecting the sensor to the backend and the website took the most work.
Avoiding false alarms. We did a lot of brainstorm to find a solution with the least false-positives. Initially, it was infrared beams and webcams, then we decided on using a vibration sensor.
Sending alerts instantly. Emailing subscribers the moment a strike is detected needed the backend to watch the sensor in a background thread.
Incomplete data. Although it is confirmed that the overpass had been hit 15 times as of today, records of older incidents are hard to find on the internet. You can help us hunt for them using the reporting feature!
Integration. With frontend, backend and hardware built in parallel, bringing everything together before the deadline was a challenge of its own.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We got to build something we were all passionate about, with everyone bringing their own strengths. We're especially proud of combining hardware and software in a hackathon project. We originally planned a web app only, and added the sensor after the hackathon started.

Most of us had never worked with hardware before, so this was our first time using an Arduino and sensors. We also learned how much clear communication matters when every part depends on the others, how important it is to stay in scope, and how to balance a fun idea with features people can actually use.

What's next for Thorpe Watch

We'd like to make impact detection more reliable, test the sensor in real-world conditions, give clearer live road closure updates, and add to the timeline as more strikes are verified. Longer term, we'd love to bring it to other cities. We're pretty sure Fredericton isn't the only one with this problem.