A 12-year-old girl from North Carolina has been awarded a $20,000 prize for her invention which helps to prevent hot car deaths, Good Morning America reported.
Lydia Denton’s invention, the Beat The Heat Car Seat, measures a vehicle’s temperature and will alert parents and emergency officials if that temperature soars to 102 degrees.
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Two years ago, Lydia was watching the news when she witnessed an upsetting segment talking about babies dying in hot cars.
According to Kids and Cars , over 940 children have died inside overheated vehicles across the country since 1990, with an average of 39 deaths per year. In fact, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) reported that last year alone, 30 children were killed inside a hot car in the U.S.
“I got really emotional about it because it’s something that’s happening in the real world that I knew could be fixed,” Lydia told GMA of the heartbreaking issue. “And no one has come up with a cheap way to fix it that people can afford.”
The preteen, who’s going into the seventh grade this fall, decided she would be that person to come up with that very invention.
“What I wanted was a device that had the ability to get 911 there to save the baby if a parent didn’t respond,” Lydia told PEOPLE . “I also wanted something everyone could afford.”
Although she acknowledged that most “new cars come with warnings and smart car seats,” these expensive vehicles aren’t something the average person can easily afford to buy. Plus she wanted to make hers a portable device that could move from seat to seat as a child grows.
After much researching and planning, the Beat The Heat Car Seat device was born.
As per Lydia’s invention, a pressure pad is placed beneath a car seat, which can sense weight over 5 pounds. Once it detects a baby or child is sitting atop it, the pad signals the system to activate and start monitoring the vehicle’s interior temperature.
If the temperature reaches 102 degrees or above, an alarm will sound, a warning will appear on the device’s LCD display, and a text will be sent to the parent or guardian’s phone.
But perhaps the most incredible feature of this device is what happens if the parent doesn’t respond to the alert.
If the button is not reset within 60 seconds of the alarm sounding, a message will be sent to 911 using a built-in GPS chip known as an Arduino which will then send the location of the vehicle to emergency services, as well.
Lydia says her potentially life-saving device would cost around $50.
This year, she submitted her Beat The Heat Car Seat device to the CITGO Fueling Education Student Challenge.
The competition, which “invites elementary and middle school students to apply STEM skills to develop a solution for a better, more sustainable world,” a spokesperson explained to GMA, awarded Lydia’s invention the $20,000 grand prize.
“I was so excited,” she recalled to PEOPLE . “I didn’t think I would win. So many kids invent so many things and I know that my ideas aren’t always the best.”
As for how all that money will be spent, Lydia is being quite practical with her winnings.
She explained that most of it will be put away for school, with some going towards fine-tuning her device and some also being given to 14-year-old brother and 10-year-old sister, who helped her develop the concept.
And, of course, she plans on using about $100 for a well-deserved shopping spree.
Lydia’s mom, Covey Denton, who works as a science teacher, said it was inspiring to watch her children work together to create something that has the potential to save so many lives.
“Kids don’t know what impossible is,” she told GMA. “They dream so big [Lydia] has proven that to me time and time again and told me, ‘It’s not impossible, Mom, you just think it’s going to be. I can do this.'”
