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

[SuperiorDG]

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.

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

[sniper7]

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

[RblDiver]

All it takes is one failure to be too much.

[Jeffrey Lebowski]

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.

[68Charger]

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.

[newracer]

All it takes is one failure to be too much.

I see what you did there.

[Mtn.man]

Maybe Could be used for voting!

[rockhound]

bend over here comes another regulation

[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. 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.

[KestrelBike]

Fuck off, kai.