It's interesting when different parts of your life are brought together in a single place. I have elementary school age kids who I wish could ride their bikes to work (no safe route...). I also commute to work, and my work revolves significantly around RFID technology.
My interest, therefore, was significantly piqued by this article in RFID Journal by Mary Catherine O'Connor.
The kids attach an EPC Gen2 passive RFID tag to their helmets (good thing... ensures that they wear the helmets!). When they ride to school and park their bike, a reader module mounted near the bike rack records the kid's visit. Each day a kid rides to school, he gets credit towards prize drawings for things like iPods. Parents can also track the kids' progress on a secure website.
Apparently, the project is working well, and is being expanded to 20 other schools across the nation, thanks to financial input from Trek.
What do you think? Is this a good idea?
My interest, therefore, was significantly piqued by this article in RFID Journal by Mary Catherine O'Connor.
Sept. 26, 2008—Most children these days get to school on four wheels—either in a bus or car. But an RFID system built by a small Boulder, Colo.-based nonprofit company called Freiker (short for FREquent bIKER) is helping to change that, one two-wheeled bike ride at a time. Armed with a $25,000 donation from 1 World 2 Wheels—the advocacy arm of Trek Bicycle Corp.—Freiker is now using the money to expand its RFID-based system nationwide.
Freiker is the brainchild of Rob Nagler, a Boulder dad, who is also a computer engineer and president of software consulting group Bivio Software. Nagler was searching for a way to get kids interested in riding their bicycles to school on a daily basis, as a means of encouraging them to exercise, and as a way to help ease the traffic jams caused by parents carting children back and forth to school each day.
The kids attach an EPC Gen2 passive RFID tag to their helmets (good thing... ensures that they wear the helmets!). When they ride to school and park their bike, a reader module mounted near the bike rack records the kid's visit. Each day a kid rides to school, he gets credit towards prize drawings for things like iPods. Parents can also track the kids' progress on a secure website.
Apparently, the project is working well, and is being expanded to 20 other schools across the nation, thanks to financial input from Trek.
What do you think? Is this a good idea?
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