Story inspires creation of warning system

Eric Leake

Friday, June 3, 2005 | 4:28 a.m.

WEEKEND EDITION

June 4 - 5, 2005

Megan Maloney has an assembly of wires and switches she believes could save young lives.

Megan, an eighth grade student at Odyssey Charter School, invented BabySeater for a science fair. The device to would alert parents if a child is left in a car.

"I heard a story on the news that a mom asked one of her older kids to take the baby to the crib for a nap," Megan said. "She went to check on him and he wasn't there. She ran out to the car and he was dead."

BabySeater won the Southern Nevada Science and Engineering Fair at UNLV in April. It was accepted to the national Discovery Channel Young Scientist Challenge.

Megan saw the news story, one of the many stories of children left in ovenlike summer cars, last year and remembered it until her school's science fair.

"I thought maybe I could do something to prevent that from happening, maybe an alarm system or something," she said.

The result is BabySeater, a system built around a sensor in child's seat. If the car is turned off and the child left in the seat for 15 minutes -- Megan plans to shorten that time to 5 minutes -- an alarm sounds, the car horn honks and the lights flash.

Metro Police Sgt. Chris Jones, a spokesman for the department, said authorities for a long time have been warning people of the danger of leaving children in cars.

"Just think about it, if you're getting in your car after it's been parked in the sun for some time, it's a very intense heat," Jones said.

Las Vegas Fire & Rescue reported that valleywide there were 605 emergency calls of children left in cars, though each call is not necessarily an actual incident. There have been approximately 220 calls so far this year.

By the end of last summer, one local child had died when he was left in a vehicle. None have died this year.

A parent who leaves a child in a hot car could face charges of child neglect or abuse, depending upon the circumstances.

Jones said no invention, regardless of its effectiveness, is a substitute for a responsible parent.

"No amount of technology or any device that they come out with is better than common sense," he said.

BabySeater is among several devices invented in recent years to help keep children out of hot cars.

There was the Baby Beeper, invented by local middle school students, to signal a key ring alert if a parent left a child in a car seat. A local pastor said God inspired her to invent Remember Baby, which would repeat a reminder in English and Spanish if a child is left in a car seat.

Neither invention appears to be available commercially.

A state Assembly bill in 2003 would have required warning devices in car safety seats. The bill died in committee.

Patent attorney Harry Weiss said the marketability and eventual success of an invention depends on factors including need, ease of manufacture, and uniqueness.

Everything else, he said, is luck and circumstance.

"It's very, very difficult to forecast what will be a successful product and what will not," Weiss said, citing as an example the Pet Rock.

"Once I saw that, I told myself, any product can be a successful product," he said. "If you've got a product that's good, then you could hit a home run on this thing."

Right now BabySeater is installed in a toy car and doll seat fastened to a science fair display board in the Maloney home.

Megan's mother is impressed that her daughter took a sad news story as a personal challenge. Megan's father used to work at a car dealership -- he gave her some pointers.

Megan is hoping that a successful science fair run and the simplicity of her design could make BabySeater a success.

"I'd like to see it save lives," she said.