LV teen’s idea a boon to child safety

Jace Radke

Friday, March 17, 2000 | 11:16 a.m.

At age 12, Robert Stauffer read a newspaper article about a baby dying in California after being forgotten inside a truck where the temperature reached nearly 150 degrees.

That memory has stuck with Stauffer, now a 14-year-old freshman at Cimarron-Memorial High School. He thinks he may have a solution to the deadly combination of summer heat, vehicles and kids.

"I just remember thinking that someone should do something so that kind of thing doesn't happen," Stauffer said. "I guess I've been kicking it around for a while, and was able to come up with the baby car alarm."

The electronic alarm goes off when the temperature climbs too high inside a car in which a child is left.

The invention won Stauffer first place Thursday in the engineering division of the Nevada Regional Sciences and Engineering Fair at UNLV.

His device could be a help to Las Vegas area firefighters and paramedics. Getting children out of locked cars has become a chore that firefighters have had to get used to, Las Vegas Fire Chief Ken Riddle said.

"You see it all the time," Riddle said. "I'll be driving home from work and one of those calls will come across the scanner. We would hope that children are not left in cars period, but we still get the calls."

Clark County Fire Department spokesman Bob Leinbach said he thinks Stauffer's alarm is an interesting idea.

"We pull kids out of cars on a regular basis year-round," Leinbach said. "Of course, in the summers here it can get very hot very quickly inside a car."

Many variables, including a child's hydration, age and time can increase the danger faced by a child left in a car, Leinbach said.

"A parent might run in the store, and while they think they are gone for only a minute maybe in actual time they are gone for seven minutes," Leinbach said.

That's one of the instances that Stauffer thinks his alarm could be a help, by going off and bringing the parent running before a child is seriously injured.

"You can set the heat sensor so that it goes off at any temperature," Stauffer said. "It works on a circuit that will set the alarm off if the car seat is buckled, and it reaches that danger temperature in the car."

Stauffer's father, Robert Stauffer Sr., a math teacher at Cimarron, believes his son's invention could be a life-saver.

"We're really hoping," the elder Stauffer said. "One of the places it could be applied is in the new minivans that are being manufactured with car seats in them. The maker could simply add a few lines of code to the car's computer and it could become a possibility."

The invention has been copyrighted, and at least one car manufacturer has already contacted the family about possibly using it in their vehicles.

Stauffer just hopes his invention can be a help to people. He said he may continue inventing, but only as a side job.

"I don't really want to be a scientist. This was just an idea I had," he said. "What I think I really want to do is be in law-enforcement, maybe with Metro."

Jace Radke is a reporter for the Las Vegas Sun. He can be reached at (702) 259-2318 or by e-mail at jace@lasvegassun.com