Local students developing gunshot detection device

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    SANTA FE, New Mexico (KOAT) — The threat of a school shooting. It’s a big concern for any student, and like Edward Scott, it’s something you can just never forget.

“Like, at any moment, there could be a school shooter, and you don’t even know about it,” he said. “I remember my freshman year, there was a school lockdown. Like nobody was allowed on campus because a student actually took a gun on campus.”

Unfortunately, Scott isn’t alone.

That’s why he’s spending his summer at Capital High School perfecting a new device with a group of students by his side.

“It constantly looks for a trigger. It scans the microphone. If there’s any change in the pressure, it could be considered as a trigger,” the senior said.

The device is known as Scooby.

The handmade gadget is intended to identify loud noises. It can also pinpoint where the noises came from.

However, its true purpose is to detect gunshots. The seven students were influenced after the Robb Elementary School shooting in Uvalde, Texas, in May 2022.

“If we can try and fix it, let’s attempt,” said Haize Christiansen, a junior.

That’s why the group is working endlessly to tackle the crisis of school shootings. Efforts include making the gadget smaller and conducting more tests.

It also means taking a closer look at the device’s coding layout.

“You start with an idea, and you just keep working the problem until you either find out it can work or can’t,” David Ritter said.

After spending 30 years in Silicon Valley, Ritter spends his time mentoring and volunteering with this group of students.

While he’s showing them the steps along the way, he says the passion is already there.

“I don’t think at the beginning, [Edward] thought he was going to spend his weekends on it, but he got into it, and he just kept working on it,” Ritter said. “And that’s the code we have in there now.”

Eventually, the student designers wants to present the device to law enforcement. They even would like to test it out at gun ranges.

But, as of right now, Ritter says more work is still needed.

“Obviously under controlled conditions, with law enforcement and everything, we could we could test [and] see how it works in the real world. So, yeah, I’m looking forward to doing that. We just haven’t gotten there yet,” Ritter said.

Students have spent over a year developing the product and have been testing it out using balloons and packaging pillows.

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