Audacious Second Prize 2015

By Claire Grant | Posted: Friday April 22, 2016

Around 25 children worldwide die every year as a result of Forgotten Baby Syndrome – a problem where a caregiver has forgotten they left a child left unsupervised in a car. 

However, an idea by product design student Rachel Loo at Otago Polytechnic could help tackle the problem. Her Seahorse Child Safety System earned her second place in the 2015 Audacious challenge. 

Forgotten Baby Syndrome occurs when a caregiver fails to adapt to a change in an everyday routine, and they continue to operate automatically in their normal routine, relying on habit memory formed through repeating activities that can be completed without thought. For parents of young children this routine change, combined with the stress and sleep deprivation of raising children, makes them more susceptible to Forgotten Baby Syndrome and its lethal potential.

Rachel was inspired to design a product that could help prevent Forgotten Baby Syndrome after hearing about a case in New Zealand. “It just seems like a horrible, unnecessary cause of death; I can't imagine how hard it must be for parents to not only lose their child, but to blame themselves. I thought surely something could be designed to help prevent it – Seahorse was my solution.”

Seahorse is a child safety system consisting of two parts; an in-car monitor that uses a weight sensor to know when a child is in the car seat, and a key chain the parent or caregiver carries with them that alerts them when they have left a child in the car.

This is Rachel’s second Audacious Challenge – she progressed to round two in 2014 but pulled out to focus her time on course work. She used her Audacious experience this time to gain valuable knowledge on writing a business plan and better understanding how business startups work. She has now completed her Bachelor of Product Design at Otago Polytechnic, and is currently looking for employment and weighing up whether to further developing the business idea.