Boulder teen wins $50,000 grant to build biometric gun safety sensor

BOULDER, Colo. – A 17-year-old inventor in Boulder will receive a $50,000 grant to help develop a biometric sensor designed to prevent unauthorized people from firing guns. “I’ve been interested in technology for as long as I can remember,” Kai Kloepfer said. “After the mass shooting in the movie theater in Aurora in 2012, I started thinking about the role technology could play in preventing accidents and death related to firearms. The idea actually came to me in a dream and I have been working since then to make it a reality.”
Kloepfer’s sensor, installed on a plastic model of a Beretta Px4, uses stored fingerprints to tell which authorized user is holding a gun and to prevent unauthorized users from firing it. In tests, the sensor worked 99.99 percent of the time.

The original model cost less than $3,000.

With the $50,000 grant from the Smart Tech Challenges Foundation, Kloepfer hopes to transfer the sensor to a real gun and move toward market-scale production, the foundation said.
Kloepfer’s grant comes as part of the Smart Tech for Firearms Challenge, aimed at improving firearm safety by furthering innovation around personalization features in firearms, locking devices and ammunition systems in order to reduce gun tragedies.
Last year, Kloepfer’s biometric technology placed him in a group of the top 34 out of 7 million high school students at the 2013 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair.
Kloepfer will be talking about his invention at TEDxMileHigh’s event CONVERGENCE on Saturday.

I'm sure this in the lab. "the sensor worked 99.99 percent of the time." In the real world however I doubt that would be the case. They should run the first tests with local Boulder PD and see how that goes. I'm sure the cops there would be all in. [Sarcasm2]

http://kdvr.com/2014/09/09/boulder-t...safety-sensor/

Great...except for the fact the shooters usually go through the background checks required and they are legal and lawful in all aspects.

All it takes is one failure to be too much.

How do those iPhone thumb sensors work in terms of reliability, every single time? My wife has one, but I guess I've never asked...

I'd really hate something like this. Everyone's grip is slightly different, so that *is* going to be a factor.

if you build it, they will come, right?

Liberal pipe dream... Criminals can find ways to disable them if they steal one.
As an Engineer, the dream that something magical exists that can prevent something from striking a primer physically is just mind-bogglingly stupid. Can you not find a way to disable the safety in any firearm?

Make the Police and Military carry them, otherwise the Miller case will come into play if you require Serfs to use them.

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Originally Posted by RblDiver

All it takes is one failure to be too much.

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I see what you did there.

Maybe Could be used for voting!

bend over here comes another regulation

Install it on a fire extinguisher. Slice open the palm of one hand, cover the other hand in soot. Then lock tester in a room and start a fire at the other end. If you're that sure of the technology, you'd test it yourself, just like the guy who tests body armor. I heard about this on the radio this morning. Not the part about winning the money, just a contest among peers for science. I think technology in general should extensively tested and developed. If he wants this to be his platform, so be it. I just won't stand behind it. As if anyone was asking me.

Fuck off, kai.

Boulder

Don't need it. My guns already work 99.99% of the time and they've never been used by an unauthorized person.

Solution to a problem that doesn't exist?

http://static.fjcdn.com/pictures/Fan...00_4862037.jpg

Given how often the technology in the rest of my life is fubarred, not only no, but hell no...

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After the mass shooting in the movie theater in Aurora in 2012, I started thinking about the role technology could play in preventing accidents and death related to firearms.

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Hey Mr. 17 YO genius. How would this thingy (that practically nobody will ever willingly use) have prevented Aurora?

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Originally Posted by GilpinGuy

Hey Mr. 17 YO genius. How would this thingy (that practically nobody will ever willingly use) have prevented Aurora?

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Damn Beat me to it, this is my exact question also. Besides don't guns load and shoot themselves with those evil "Clips"?

I wonder how many fewer high capacity massacre clips there are in Colorado since the new law passed? Surely some people have fired all the ammunition from some of their magazines causing them to dissolve like DeGette predicted would happen.

He thinks the is a good idea for use on the battlefield. Join the Army bro and tell me how you fell in a few years.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECvNYmtCehw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYJ6dyQBisg
http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news...fety-challenge

Hey Smart Ass! If you think this is such a great idea for the industry, why don't you reserve a booth at the 2015 SHOT show and the NRA Convention and see how well it goes over.

They can biometric sensor my nuts before they'll mess with my guns.

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Originally Posted by Eggysrun

They can biometric sensor my nuts before they'll mess with my guns.

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*Pictures a device for women to use on their philandering husbands...if it detects an unauthorized, shall we say, "companion," it locks up your manhood* :P

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Originally Posted by KS63

Hey Smart Ass! If you think this is such a great idea for the industry, why don't you reserve a booth at the 2015 SHOT show and the NRA Convention and see how well it goes over.

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Hey now, lets not try to make money with capitalism! Lets make the government force everyone to buy it! (ACA, anyone?)

Is this the same kid that is spouting that the number of children and teens killed since 1970 is 2.5 times greater than the number of soldiers killed in Viet Nam, Iraq and Afghanistan combined? That sound like a very generous definition of children and teens and he's getting his 'statistics' from an anti-gun site.

I've been seeing a lot of comments on FB about how we need to give the kid a break and see how he is doing something to improve the world. Kind of like the kids that get degrees in areas where they are not going to get a job after the fact. If he were to put this idea into a business plan and do the research he would see that what he is doing is a waste of time. Only if the government funds his idea will he ever make a dime, but I never see this saving any lives.

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Originally Posted by Irving

Install it on a fire extinguisher. Slice open the palm of one hand, cover the other hand in soot. Then lock tester in a room and start a fire at the other end.

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That's the positive control case and I thoroughly approve of it but you also need the negative control case. Program Mr. Inventor's and only Mr. Inventor's biometrics into the gun then let hem stand 10 feet away while someone else picks up the gun, points it at Mr. Inventor, and attempts to fire it. Repeat 1000 times for statistical significance.

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Originally Posted by SuperiorDG

He thinks the is a good idea for use on the battlefield. Join the Army bro and tell me how you fell in a few years.

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Typos tell the truth. loved it.

EMP disables my weapon in a nuclear scenario? Just fly the Chinese flag over the White House...

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Originally Posted by KestrelBike

Fuck off, kai.

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+1

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Originally Posted by Eggysrun

They can biometric sensor my nuts before they'll mess with my guns.

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Don't be giving them any ideas. [Coffee]

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Originally Posted by davsel

+1

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Plus 2

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Originally Posted by Aloha_Shooter

That's the positive control case and I thoroughly approve of it but you also need the negative control case. Program Mr. Inventor's and only Mr. Inventor's biometrics into the gun then let hem stand 10 feet away while someone else picks up the gun, points it at Mr. Inventor, and attempts to fire it. Repeat 1000 times for statistical significance.

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Good work. I'll add it to the peer review journal I'm writing about this project.