Garage Crossing
The final project of my course, 2021. Three of us, a wooden ramp, some sensors, and a camera.
In 2021 I was walking to school and a car came out of a garage right in front of me. Not the driver's fault, you cannot see anything from inside that ramp, and I could not see the car either until it was already out.
I got to class and told the other two in my group. The idea was simple enough: one sensor inside so people walking past know a car is coming out, one sensor outside so the driver knows someone is walking past. We put a buzzer in as well as the lights, so it still works if you cannot see them. Teachers said yes :)
Then we built it, physically. I cut it out of wood with a jigsaw, put the ramp together, stuck the sensors on it, and wrote a Python script that lit an LED when they fired. The first time that LED came on because something actually moved in front of the sensor, I was way too happy about it.
We also added a camera that read the number plate with OCR, so if it knew the plate the door just opened on its own.
That was the final project of the course. Still the first thing I made that was any use to anyone :')