Cupertino High School's 'Team Tinnovate' Driving Change With Innovation

A team of Cupertino High School students may soon send drivers and civil engineers in a new direction thanks to their GPS alternative they developed after being late to class in the mornings because of snarled traffic near the school.

Entered in the annual Spirit of Innovation Challenge, their product is up for a vote and time is of the essence in getting in those votes because public voting closes March 29. Go to http://www.conradawards.org/groups to vote for Team Tinnovate.

Team Tinnovate—Cupertino High School students Vinitra Swamy, Ashley Liu, and Michael Li—is one of five finalists competing in the Cybertechnology and Security category, each of which will be given a chance to present their ideas during the Innovation Summit taking place April 10-13 at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.

Tinnovate’s idea is Invision, a GPS substitute that would utilize imaging data collected from satellites to provide commuters with routes that are determined by traffic, weather, and more all collected and processed in real-time. Unlike the approach taken by Google, which combines archived information from satellite imagery and their Street View project, Invision would use data being actively collected by satellites to monitor traffic conditions and automatically relay that information to the user.

Whereas Google Maps gives directions and approximates how long it will take to get to a destination, this system will ideally be able to use real-time data to determine not necessarily the quickest, but the safest and most convenient route to a destination.

The team got the idea from “the difficulty at times to get to school in the morning.”

Michael Li, a sophomore at Cupertino High School says “Kids are often late to classes because their parents can’t get them through the traffic jam at the drop-off zone. So we decided to try to create a product to tackle that problem.”

The team believes the technology will be useful for civil engineers as well.

“It’s not only useful for the everyday person, it’s also useful for the people fixing the problems we already have,” says team leader Vinitra Swamy.

For example, the technology could help civil engineers gauge things like safety concerns and traffic bottlenecks in order to determine the best way to renovate roads and freeways.

In addition, Tinnovate is one of two teams in the Cybertechnology and Security category competing in Skybox Imaging’s Out-of-the-Box challenge by incorporating the company’s high-resolution satellite imaging technology in their idea proposals. The winning team will receive a $5,000 grant at the conclusion of the Innovation Summit from Skybox Imaging, regardless whether they win the main competition or not.

The competition, held by The Conrad Foundation, founded in 2008 by Nancy Conrad, the wife of the late Apollo 12 astronaut Charles Conrad, encourages students to tap into their ingenuity and entrepreneurial skills to find ways of using science and technology to create commercially viable products that would improve global sustainability. 

There are four categories, and the teams have 15 minutes to present their ideas to a panel of judges during the Innovation Summit. The winners from each category are awarded a grant of $10,000 to further research and fund their project.

There are now only two days left to cast a vote to nominate Cupertino High School’s team Tinnovate for the People’s Choice Award. Until Friday, the public is encouraged to review the teams and is able to vote for one team in each category for the award.

The public vote will count as five percent of the overall score at the Innovation Summit, and the members of the winning team will each receive a Kindle Fire tablet. Support Tinnovate and give them your vote at http://www.conradawards.org/groups.

Chris Shyvers is a San Jose State University intern for Patch.