Team 14 - trAce

Inspiration

We were inspired by our own experiences of constantly misplacing cards, and we thought that there had to be a simple solution to address this problem.

What it does

trAce is a phone wallet (which is an attachment to the back of your phone that can carry cards like a license or ID) with an internal circuit that allows it to notify you when a card you're carrying goes missing--before you lose it.

How we built it

We built the prototype body for trAce using index cards and rubber bands. In terms of the actual detection mechanism, we utilized conductive metal strips that were placed on either side of a card slot and passed voltage using wires. If the card was taken out of the wallet, the metal strips would come into contact, completing a circuit that signals to our app to send an alert to the user's phone.

Challenges we ran into

One of the challenges that we ran into was making the detection mechanism as simple and compact as possible. We initially thought of using photo interrupter sensors, but the technology would not have fit inside a card slot. Fortunately, we came up with the elegant solution of easily detecting when the circuit is complete or broken to understand if the card is in the wallet or not.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud of the fact that we got our product to interface between the hardware and software. When a card is taken out of the wallet, it actually sends an alert to your phone, so creating this core functionality was a huge accomplishment for us.

What we learned

We learned that functional and unique products need not be created out of complex and unknown technology. By just using existing resources for innovative purposes, it is possible to solve many of the daily nuisances we face.

What's next for Team 14 - trACE

Moving forward, we plan on growing into a business from just the prototyping stage. By securing seed money, we can hopefully begin production of trAce.