by Viraj Shah
3rd Grade at Sterling Montessori (Cary, NC)
Third Place
Crystal, Mrs. Daniella’s daughter, was a freckled, skinny, energetic middle schooler. She had brought home a flyer for an engineering competition.
Scientists Beware! A competition to celebrate the greatest engineering mind! Participants create a lock to secure the priceless diamonds to be on the Gem Show. We have the safe, You design an unbreakable lock. Winner gets a full ride scholarship to the college of their choice!!
Crystal enthusiastically asked, “Can I please participate?”
Ms. Daniella chuckled, “Sure! Tell me why.”
“I want that scholarship. You always said I come from a long-line of inventors. I want to keep our family legacy alive. Ryan, my bro, can’t be the only smart one!” replied Crystal. Mom replied, “ok!”
Crystal grew up with stories of her grandfather being a renowned inventor. He was known for wonderful mechanisms and revolutionary ideas.
Crystal got busy making her prototype. She knew that fingerprints are unique to an individual. She used a laptop fingerprint sensor and wired it to a latch. She programmed it and she had a working prototype for a safe that would only open with her fingerprint. She talked about her achievement at the dinner table and hid her brothers’ car keys in the safe as a tease! Ryan smirked and said, “You got me!” and left with a glass in hand. Crystal was too tired to think and retired to her bed.
The next morning, as she was getting ready to go to school, she found her “safe” was open on the breakfast table- with a clown inside! Crystal shrieked in horror! She hated clowns! How could Ryan open her safe? She remembered Ryan went to the room with HER glass. An Internet search revealed to her how fingerprints could be lifted and plastered over the clear tape. Clearly, Ryan tricked her lock. Discouraged and gloomy, she went running. She was down but not defeated. She decided to explore new ideas and went back to research. Face recognition and a retina scan were other biometrics tools, but they were not foolproof. There were examples of 3D models being used to defeat facial recognition and people with disease couldn’t use a retina scan. Tired from thinking, she drifted asleep. A vivid dream from childhood soon appeared.
A little girl had wandered into an attic. Amazed, she kept going through riffraff and old military posters curled together. She stumbled upon a little metal safe. As she tried to get a closer look, screeching sounds befuddled her, and two burly mice jumped out of nowhere. This freaked little Crystal out and she ran down to the safety of her room.
Crystal woke up with a sweat and shudder. It felt so real. Spirited Crystal rushed to the attic with a flashlight. She quickly found the box from her dream and cleared the dust. Voila! It belonged to her grandfather. Inside, she found a journal. As she poured over details of the science experiments, she noticed a diagram. He had detected that when presented with the same image, thoughts and emotions were unique to an individual. Full of ideas and excitement, she rushed to her room and started planning her lock.
Her experiment revealed that people exhibit a variety of thoughts, reflexes, and ways to solve problems, and yet they remain unique to an individual. If she figured out a way to associate these characteristics with a safe operation, she could devise a winning entry. She borrowed a virtual reality headset from her science teacher and obtained brain wave sensors from eBay. She proceeded to place those sensors in the hat and started recording her brain waves looking at a set of pictures. She was amazed to find that the brain wave patterns remained consistent and unique to herself. She then devised a set of jigsaw pictures and math puzzles and recorded speed and the order she solved them in a virtual reality. She subsequently tried a series of puzzle and picture set and learned that even if the puzzle changed, the speed and ways of solving them remained unique to her. For example, she always picked a pink car first out of 4 shown regardless of make or model. When presented with a picture puzzle, she always placed the right corner piece first. Having linked all these features to a computer program, she had a unique way to unlock a safe. It used brain wave, deep neural networking for thinking pattern and solutions, in addition to a fingerprint for authentication.
After a week of testing it over with her friends and mom, it was no wonder that she once again locked her brother’s car keys just before his Friday getaway. Of course, she secured the first place at the competition and Ryan is still looking for his keys.
Bibliography:
https://makezine.com/laboratory-81-dusting-and-lifting-l/
https://www.instructables.com/id/Hack-Fingerprint-Scanner-Using-GLUE/
https://www.encyclopedia.com/medicine/divisions-diagnostics-and-procedures/medicine/electroencephalography
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/imaginar-kids/id1167349422?mt=8
https://www.fastcompany.com/90257174/the-future-of-passwords-your-brain