Crowdfunding the DUDAD for a wake-up call at the docks

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Chris Barbeau

An invention from the minds of tinkerer and North Carolina-based driver Chris Barbeau (pictured) and Judy Chute got its crowdfunding campaign under way recently at Kickstarter.com for the DUDAD (yes, pronounced doo-dad) — otherwise known as the “The Truck Drivers Wireless Audible Green Light Notification Device.” Its main parts are a wireless light sensor, which attaches to an adjustable pole, and wireless receiver that, when the sensor detects the green light at a shipper or receivers dock blazing on to signal the end of a loading period, goes off like an alarm to wake the driver up back in the cab. 

Barbeau pitches it as an effective way to eliminate unecessary interruptions — or extensions, as it were — of sleep during extended loading periods. You can run through the basics of the device in the video below, and there’s more information at DUDAD.net

To check out the funding campaign they have under way to ramp up production of the devices, and see the various rewards they’re offering for those that contribute, visit this page on Kickstarter.com. A $120 contribution level amounts to a pre-order of the DUDAD at 33 percent below retail and 16 percent below wholesale, the makers say. They’re shooting for a $30,000 goal at the crowdfunding website. 

Capping a week of appreciation
Here’s hoping it was more than just a run-of-the-mill week for you. I thought I’d share a little nugget of appreciation from Tom Schoening of the Sioux City Truck Sales Peterbilt dealer in Iowa, whom Channel 19 regulars will remember for his work on the customer-rig-dominated annual calendar he puts together. Obviously a great photographer, Schoening will be posting shots from a driver-appreciation event he was involved in, held Sept. 18 at Sam’s Club in Sioux City, to the Sioux City Truck Sales website.

“More than 400 attended,” he notes, with various activities including a luncheon, highway tractor display, health fair and various games and prizes. The local Fox affiliate covered the event here. 

Prior to all that, too, he put together the following slide-show vid to demonstrate his own appreciation for the folks and trucks that power the industry. Here’s how he describes it: “These photographs are highlights of six years of photographing calendar trucks, attending truck shows and snapping work trucks in action. The images include both highway tractors and vocational work trucks, plus facts about the importance of the trucking industry. As a member of the Sioux City Camera Club, I assembled and entered this photo slideshow in a regional amateur photographers competition this fall.”

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Wish him good luck, and here’s hoping the weekend’s gone well at home or out on the road!… 

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