In the Press
Teens develop smart gun to stop mass shootings
DiscoverSTEM students develop a SecureGun prototype equipped with GPS technology, geofencing and artificial intelligence (AI).
What if a gun could think for itself?
It’s an unorthodox question a group of local students are attempting to answer.
Ten Plano and Frisco students – Amina Syeda, Hawwa Shahid, Salwa Shahid, Rayyan Punjani, Hanzala Rehan, Hanin Shakeel, Areeba Qazi, Faaiz Nadeen, Amaan Jaffar and Nabeeha Qazi – created SecureGun, which has the ability to lock or unlock itself depending on where it is and where it’s pointed.
The SecureGun students said they first got the idea for a smart gun after the school shooting at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. The shooting, where 17 students died in their classrooms, opened their eyes to the realities of gun violence.
“The kids at Parkland … they didn’t know that when they were going to school that day that something so horrible would happen, and we as high schoolers, we’ve all thought, ‘What if this happened at our school? What would we do?,’” Salwa Shahid said.
And when a spree of students were caught bringing guns to local schools, the students realized “it’s a problem that can happen anywhere, and our focus is to limit that problem to its maximum ability while appeasing both sides of the argument,” she said.
The SecureGun prototype is a modified toy gun equipped with GPS technology, geofencing and artificial intelligence (AI). Below the nozzle sits a high-definition camera that’s connected to AI technology that allows the camera lens to decipher what it’s pointed at, like a person an animal, crowd or gun range target.
