As a member of the QUEST Honors program at UMD, my team and I were assigned an atoms-based innovation project with which we had to craft a solution to a survival-based problem facing society. The goal of the project was not only to provide me and my team an opportunity to strengthen our overall team dynamic but moreover, to focus on crafting a well-thought-out physical solution to the assigned survival-based scenario. Additionally, the project's goal was to challenge every team to implement a design-thinking approach by following the most appropriate and research-based steps in the problem-solving process.

Our product, SafeSeat, aims to tackle the issue of drowsy driving. SafeSeat is a soft, memory-based cushion that houses a haptic vibration sensor as well as an eye-tracking technology camera that are wired together. Once drowsy driving is monitored via the camera, the driver's seat begins to vibrate alerting the driver to wake up. We decided that we will initially exclusively market and sell our product to trucking companies in the US and ultimately diffuse to the overall US car manufacturing market. Creating a product idea from scratch is no easy feat; nevertheless, it was a very fulfilling experience.

As a team, we me made numerous decisions as to where we wanted our project's trajectory to head, and as a result, we each practiced and attained numerous tangible and unique skills. As an individual, I learned how to implement the design-thinking process experientially while also balancing leadership and team-playing attitudes throughout the course of this project. I also gained a tremendous amount from being able to conduct very deep market research as well as competitor analyses.