During our fourth year at Humber, ABC Group of companies approached our class looking for new ideas to pitch to their clients (mostly auto manufacturers). Given the task of designing a lightweight car hood out of plastic, we managed to implement a system to protect pedestrians in vehicle-pedestrian collisions. We also designed a simple and convenient method to pour windshield fluid into its reservoir without popping the hood up.
In the event of a hard collision, a signal is sent to a compressed air cylinder, telling it to deploy (in a similar manner to airbag deployment systems). The released air causes a sealed pocket of the plastic hood to expand, which pushes the entire hood upwards. The expanding action, and the extra distance created between the hood and the engine, cushions the unfortunate pedestrian's head from colliding with the engine block.
