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7th -Graders Use Science to Create Gun Lock
Josey1
Member Posts: 9,598 ✭✭
7th -Graders Use Science to Create Gun Lock
Sunday, April 14, 2002
Wasatch Junior High seventh-grader Elizabeth Orth holds a gun lock she and classmates Stephanie Woodward, left, and Kristina Evans invented as their semifinal winning project to compete for the Bayer/National Science Foundation Award. (Al Hartmann/The Salt Lake Tribune)
BY MARTA MURVOSH
THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE
The innovation of three Wasatch Junior High seventh-graders -- a gun lock they believe may reduce accidental shootings -- could be right on target to win a national competition.
Elisabeth Orth, Stephanie Woodward and Kristina Evans used teamwork and technology, a circuit board and red and green lights to create the device. An alarm the students describe as "annoying" sounds when the incorrect combination is entered.
The gun lock was selected this month from 2,500 entries as one of 30 finalists for the Bayer/National Science Foundation Award. The girls -- who are 12, except for 13-year-old Orth -- will know April 23 if they will advance to the finals and have a chance to win a $25,000 grant to further develop their innovation.
"We started with a metal box around the [toy] gun, but thought, 'No one will want to carry that, and it's too easy to break into,' " Woodward said.
The three friends entered the competition because science teacher Kim Stucki requires her class to participate in one of several contests as a term project. Stucki chose the Bayer competition because it challenges students to use science and technology to develop solutions to community issues.
"We spend a lot of time teaching kids to do experiments and to solve problems using science," she said. "[The contest] is just an extension of that."
While the girls' 3-by-1 1/2-inch prototype is a bit unwieldy in its present form, the three say it could be reduced into to a microchip. They also have plans to include a pager that would alert the gun owner if the weapon is tampered with.
The gun lock wasn't the threesome's first effort.
After failing to devise a way to melt icy sidewalks -- they discovered sprinkler systems filled with salt water freeze in cold weather -- the girls returned to the school library for inspiration.
There, they found a newspaper article on an accidental shooting. Next, they went online to research gun-related accidents. The friends said they learned 180 children died last year in inadvertent shootings and 92,000 American students carry guns to school daily.
Easy access to firearms at home could be a contributing factor, the girls decided.
Some of their discoveries -- gun locks made of Velcro or those looking as if they would be easy to pick -- appalled them.
"It was scary -- one gun lock will accidentally discharge the gun when you drop it," Orth said.
mmurvosh@sltrib.com
http://www.sltrib.com/04142002/utah/728137.htm
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
Sunday, April 14, 2002
Wasatch Junior High seventh-grader Elizabeth Orth holds a gun lock she and classmates Stephanie Woodward, left, and Kristina Evans invented as their semifinal winning project to compete for the Bayer/National Science Foundation Award. (Al Hartmann/The Salt Lake Tribune)
BY MARTA MURVOSH
THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE
The innovation of three Wasatch Junior High seventh-graders -- a gun lock they believe may reduce accidental shootings -- could be right on target to win a national competition.
Elisabeth Orth, Stephanie Woodward and Kristina Evans used teamwork and technology, a circuit board and red and green lights to create the device. An alarm the students describe as "annoying" sounds when the incorrect combination is entered.
The gun lock was selected this month from 2,500 entries as one of 30 finalists for the Bayer/National Science Foundation Award. The girls -- who are 12, except for 13-year-old Orth -- will know April 23 if they will advance to the finals and have a chance to win a $25,000 grant to further develop their innovation.
"We started with a metal box around the [toy] gun, but thought, 'No one will want to carry that, and it's too easy to break into,' " Woodward said.
The three friends entered the competition because science teacher Kim Stucki requires her class to participate in one of several contests as a term project. Stucki chose the Bayer competition because it challenges students to use science and technology to develop solutions to community issues.
"We spend a lot of time teaching kids to do experiments and to solve problems using science," she said. "[The contest] is just an extension of that."
While the girls' 3-by-1 1/2-inch prototype is a bit unwieldy in its present form, the three say it could be reduced into to a microchip. They also have plans to include a pager that would alert the gun owner if the weapon is tampered with.
The gun lock wasn't the threesome's first effort.
After failing to devise a way to melt icy sidewalks -- they discovered sprinkler systems filled with salt water freeze in cold weather -- the girls returned to the school library for inspiration.
There, they found a newspaper article on an accidental shooting. Next, they went online to research gun-related accidents. The friends said they learned 180 children died last year in inadvertent shootings and 92,000 American students carry guns to school daily.
Easy access to firearms at home could be a contributing factor, the girls decided.
Some of their discoveries -- gun locks made of Velcro or those looking as if they would be easy to pick -- appalled them.
"It was scary -- one gun lock will accidentally discharge the gun when you drop it," Orth said.
mmurvosh@sltrib.com
http://www.sltrib.com/04142002/utah/728137.htm
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
Comments
Happiness is a warm gun
Just looking at their faces (in the picture) reminds me of what a precious resourse they are!
Happiness is a warm gun
Happiness is a warm gun
I dont like the blatant use of what I call "indirect propaganda". By highlighting, encouraging, and supporting children that create a new type of gun-restraint device, they're basically saying under their breath that they support the gun-grabbers agenda.
Forcing handguns that could have been otherwise used by a practiced owner to defend themselves in a crisis to be locked up and useless in a split-second situation is a piss-poor idea. I've always said that.
I've also always said that instead of forcing (as many states are currently severely listing towards) gun-owners to put locks on their protection guns, why dont they encourage and enable parents to educate their children about guns, their purpose, and why they shouldnt play around with them unsupervised?
Like Salzo said, if a student was to do some pro-gun or pro-shooting/hunting related project in school, there would be an outcry from the local branch of nosy Liberal mothers (aka-the PTA) and the community in general that would result only in the kid (and his parents and anyone who ever came near him) being demonized and probably expelled as well.
The double standard is disgusting. And it all goes back to what I said before about "indirect propaganda".
Just imagine! If a kid was to do a project on "The Best Methods to Remove Guns in their Every Form from Our Society", they'd probably take him to California and make him a professor at Berkeley!
They ought to burn that place to the ground and piss on the ashes, by the way. But that's a story for another day...
A fine cigar gladdens the soul."Remember, there are only two: The Quick, and the Dead"
I see your point now, but still think it's a good idea. (The beeper part!)