How can skills stand out more than limitations? How can we urge people to respect diversity and overcome prejudices?

We invited a quadriplegic to drive a race car. Most people would say that this would be impossible. But not us, neither our pilot, Rodrigo Mendes – founder of Rodrigo Mendes Institute that fights for disabled inclusion.

If a quadriplegic can drive a racing car, what else is a disabled person unable to do?

We have build a F1 replica that have all of its commands automated by actuators controlled by a onboard computer. Steering, accelerator, brakes, gear control. To this computer a EEG headset was also connected, and the system was able to read brain waves, detect specific thoughts and translate them into commands to the car.More than 20 embedded control systems on the car. A frontal camera was used to send images of the track to a lane keeping assistance, that was used to keep the car inside the limits of the track. The final results is a car that provides an experience of driving by the thoughts of the pilot.

- Tubular frame chassis

- Motor Suzuki GSXW 1100

- Electrical driving system

- Frontal camera for lane keeping assistance system

- Servo actuators (accelerator, brakes, gear)

- Onboard Wifi and cable ethernet network

- Onboard computer with modules:

- Microcontroled custom board based on PIC

- arduino

- raspberry pi used for the display screen inside cockpit

- Portable PC for EEG signal processing

- Portable PC for lane keeping assistance system

- RF receiver for emergency control system

- Telemetry system with real time data transmission to the boxes

- System with 4 onboard wireless cameras for real time video transmission to the boxes

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The project was influenced by the new generation of interfaces between men and machines, where we stop interacting with simple buttons and machines are increasingly reading more complex interactions, such as our body expressions, our thoughts, our sensations and our vital signs.

Our innovation team combined EEG brain powered technology, steering algorithms and track mapping.

The car was tested over than 5,000km. It was 7 months of work and more than 100 people involved.

The car featured in "Auto Esporte", the most relevant program directed to the automotive sector in Brazil.

Volkswagen invited us to present our car in "SAE", one important auto show Focused on automotive innovations and mobility trends.

It was discussed on Young Economic Global Leader Summit of 2017, World Economic Forum and it is already scheduled

to figure in important events of innovation, technology and social responsibility, as well as universities fairs.

89 million viewers were impacted by the project on TV and Web.

The project promoted 317% traffic increase to facebook page of Rodrigo Mendes Institute and 273% traffic increase to the website of Rodrigo Mendes Institute.

One of the ours videos had more than 636.000 likes on facebook.

The project was featured in sports, entertainment and news programs on Globo TV, that covers 98% of all Brazilian cities, reaching 99.6% of the country's population.

Brazil has 45 million people with some disability. 53.8% are out of the work market. Illiteracy rate amongst disabled people older than15 is of 81.7%. These data show we live in a prejudiced society in which disabilities stand out more than capabilities. We need a big idea to show that respect for differences is the bases of equality and barriers imposed by society can be overcome.