Chokwe Selassie is on a mission to help drivers avoid potholes (路面坑洞) .Theeighth-grader got his inspiration on a recent morning, when his mother was driving him toschool. Their car was damaged as it went over a huge pothole in the middle of the street intheir hometown of Jackson, Mississippi. “I decided I was going to do something about thepothole problem in my city,”said Chokwe. His solution: an app that warns drivers when thereis a pothole ahead. 

Chokwe developed the app with his friends,“When the app detects a pothole, it ishighlightedin red,” Chokwe says. “And if you get close to the pothole, your phone will warnyou with a beep.” Drivers can also use the app to report any potholes they encounter, and tolook for other routes they can take to avoid roads that have them. 

The app relies on current available information about the streets of Jackson. “It works byusing the city’s 311 call system, soit uses information already stored in a database,” Chokwesays. Throughthe call system, citizens dial 311 to report non-emergency problems—whichinclude potholes. As Chokwe and his friends worked on the app, they also went street bystreet throughout the city. They determined that focusing on the 10 busiest streets in Jacksonwould give them a large enough sample size to test it.