Supporting student innovation in vehicle safety
The 'Safety Competition for Students 07' (Safecos 07) project was a Specific Support Action (SSA) tasked with the organisation and support of technical models designed by European student teams to be presented at the Enhanced Safety of Vehicles (ESV) conference. Held in France in 2007, the ESV conference hosted an international student safety technology design competition with final competitors chosen from among the Asia-Pacific, Europe and North America regions. The competition's organisation involved three phases: pre-selection of six relevant projects on the strength of their written description and drawings; construction of the chosen projects' models and selection of the best three based on presentation; and the exhibition of the three winner models at the ESV conference. Europe's chosen projects were the 'Integrated child and adult restraint system', the 'System to measure and evaluate the seat belt usage rate in coaches' and 'Active pedestrian head protection against windscreen'. Safecos 07 supported travel to the conference of two students from each team. Their projects were exhibited in competition with two from the Asia-Pacific region and three from North America. Second place was awarded to Institut fur Fahrzeugtechnik Trier's 'System to measure and evaluate the seat belt usage rate in coaches'.