The Ethan Ecyber Research

There are 2 types of memory systems - prospective memory (cognitive) and habitual memory (habit) which try to explain how parents can lose track of their child in the back seat of the car. Cognitive memory is fragile and is processed by the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex. The hippocampus stores new information, and the prefrontal cortex makes plans for the future. A coordinated effort between the 2 areas helps us form prospective memory, which requires awareness on the person’s part. Habit is frequently active and can override cognitive memory causing the person to “forget” new tasks.

Many forgotten babies can result from this override.

Approximately 37 kids die each year in the past 10 years from heat stroke while trapped in cars. These can be from children who are intentionally left in their carseats, trapped while playing in cars or accidentally forgotten in the car. Children overheat more easily than adults and younger children usually cannot get out of the situation by themselves. Although there are laws making it illegal to leave a child in the car, it does not prevent the accidentally forgotten children.

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Outside temperatures don’t have to be high in order for children to die of heat stroke.

About half of the children who die in cars due to heat stroke are due to either the child getting trapped in a car while playing, and is unable to get out on their own, or are left in car intentionally by caregiver who believe they won’t be gone long, or they don’t think it will get too hot.

Many states have made it illegal to leave the baby unattended in the car, and locking the car when you are not in it, would help prevent children getting trapped in the car. Technology can help remind parents of babies in the car, and warn if children are in the car unattended.

There are many ways to remind yourself that you have a child in the backseat. You can place a toy in the front seat to remind you, place the carseat in the middle of the backseat where you can see it, leave something that you will remember to take with you like a shoe or your purse or phone next to the carseat, be extra vigilant when routines change, look before you lock, have your child care provider call you if your child is not there, and many others. Also, be aware of how hot the car gets even if it is not too hot outside.

There are many different car seat rules in different countries. We have noted that it is important to know the different car seat requirements in different countries to see if there are similarities or differences that make it safer for a child. European and America have very similar laws, but there are fewer hot car deaths in Europe - it may be that they do not drive as much as we do, or that they have adopted some early technology requirements to remind parents that they have children in the back. We learned about different rules in different countries.

Many children under the age of two up to 14-year are vulnerable to hot car death. Multiple states have adopted laws that make it illegal to leave a baby in the car unattended to try to prevent this phenomenon. This article shows the temperature rise within a car in the first hour, and children can easily reach 107 degrees or more, the temperature when organs of the child stop working and they die. This article also shows the number of hot car deaths since 1998 to 2017 totalling 705 deaths, which average 37 per year, monthly statistics and statistics by state. Texas leads the nation in hot car deaths. The article further tracks the reasons for unattended children in cars, and also has safety recommendations on how to educate and raise awareness of this issue.

Ray Ray is a child who was left in the car by her dad and when her parents realized it, it was too late. They have started a website in her honor to remind other families to set up check points to ensure it doesn’t happen to others. They advocate that the child care provider contact parents or designated persons, if the child is not at the facility on time, and that everyone looks in the backseat before leaving the car, everytime. They have had very positive feedback from the website. There is a great web page with a lot of concise information on hot car deaths - kids and cars.org.

It has multiple articles regarding the science behind memory lapses, statistics of where and who and how many children have suffered this consequence, how to prevent it, and multiple tools to help. We were able to contact the website owners who sent us fliers that could be included in our campaign to prevent these deaths, and learn more about their mission. HOT CARS Act was introduced to Congress in 2017 by 2 Senators, Al Franken and Richard Blumenthal, requiring a standard warning on vehicles to remind parents to look in the back seat before exiting the vehicle. Although at current time, the act has not yet passed, it is hopeful that it will. That would serve to try to decrease the number of child deaths from being forgotten in the back seat at die from heat stroke.

There are multiple ways to remind yourself to look in the back seat before exiting the car. This will help decrease the probability that you will leave a child trapped in a car. A car’s internal temperature can increase by twenty degrees Fahrenheit in just ten minutes, and children’s body temperature can increase three to five times faster than adults. Children can die if their body temperature gets to 107 Fahrenheit and It does not take long for this to happen. That is why it is important to not leave a child unattended in the vehicle even for a short period of time.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) looked at the market and evaluated several of the products on the market to see how effective the product was in reminding parents that they had a child in the back seat. The found that there were a lot of products on the market which worked well which ranged in prices from low to high. None of them were found to be completely reliable, and it was difficult to convince parents to purchase the device since parents did not think they could forget their child in the back seat. Different device designs and reminder modalities were tested and the results of the tests were published. These devices were useful in reminding parents if they accidentally left their child in the back seat, however, they do not warn of children who get trapped in the car while playing or those who were left intentionally in the car, two other main reasons that there are child fatalities secondary to heat stroke in cars.

Texas Tech student, Gage Dutkin, is an aspiring entrepeneur. He heard from his mother about the number of tragic deaths involving children in hot cars, and was inspired to work on solving the issue. He started looking into different solutions and created a business plan together with two of his friends. He entered into a competition called iLaunch and won $10,000 to work on his project. He continues to work on the prototype and business plan to make the product a success.

In Brazil, hot car deaths are also a problem. This alone shows that the incidents can happen anywhere, not just the USA. This also shows that this is a worldwide problem, not constrained to one area. Finally, in Brazil, the research shows that forgetting is the most common cause of vehicular hyperthermia, so we should also make sure parents know that they’re vulnerable to this tragedy, too. In Brazil, we found that increasing awareness of this problem through education is highly recommended.

We designed our product by thinking of the design, then researching different resources to help us wire, design, and program it. One of the resource we used included this website which helped us wire a push button. We obtained a list of items needed to make the product, then wired it together per the instructions on this website, then programmed it to detect the different states of the button. After we made the prototype, we tested it and the product worked as expected.