AiS Challenge Team Interim

 

Team Number: 009   

School Name: Alamogordo High School   

Area of Science: Biochemistry   

Project Title: Modeling the Metabolism of Ethanol to Determine Blood Alcohol Content   

 

 

This program will attempt to predict a person's blood alcohol content (BAC) based on information input into the computer. The factors will include age, gender, weight, number of hours since the first drink, number of hours since last food consumed, approximate frequency of alcohol consumption per month, and any other factors found that could increase the accuracy of the prediction. An equation modeling the metabolism of ethanol will be tied in to this data and compiled to determine BAC. The Traffic Department and others have previously written several programs for the same purpose, but these programs merely use the subject's weight, gender, and the number of drinks since a certain start time, giving a poor estimate of the true BAC. Our program will be useful because it will provide a more accurate estimate of a person's BAC, information that could be used to find the approximate amount of alcohol one could consume before becoming intoxicated, and thereby possibly preventing someone from commiting a DWI. The data from this program will be compared to data from the Traffic Department programs and to actual data from other alcohol-related studies to ascertain the validity of our program's data.

Thus far, we have completed the preliminary research for our project. We have begun planning the program but have not yet written any code. We have a fairly basic mathematical model complete that we will be expanding upon as we continue with the program. We are planning to contact the Traffic Department to see if they would be interested in our finished program and we will try to obtain authentic experimental BAC data so that we will be able to compare our results to actual tests.

We plan to use Widmark's formula as a starting point for our program.

Widmark's formula:

{   [ Fl oz EtOH x 0.0514(lb/fl oz EtOH) x 100% x 1.055(g/mL) ] / [Pounds of person x Widmark r]    -    [Hours since first drink x Widmark B]   }   = BAC

The content for this equation was found HERE.

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