A team of students from the University of Waikato have come up with an idea that could help parents monitor their wayward toddlers.
Sam Horrocks, Scott Joblin, Paul Gray and Greg Henderson are studying marketing and communications at the Waikato Management School and have entered their concept the Toddler Tracker at the Waikato University Marketing Trade Show taking place on Friday May 20.
The Marketing Trade Show is an annual event where students are put into teams and are asked to come up with an idea for a new product, do some market testing, design packaging, formulate a price and plan a marketing strategy - this year’s theme being safety orientated products.
The semester long project culminates in an exhibit that showcases the student team’s ideas to a group of judges at the show.
Horrocks and his team mates came up with the Toddler Tracker which is a belt the toddler wears with an embedded sensor. Parents place other individual sensors on “hazards” in their homes such as open windows, decks or hot ovens and when the toddler walks very close to a hazard and an alarm is sounded on a wristband worn by the parents.
“We heard of two examples where children had been killed when their parents had been out of the room so we thought of ways where parents would know if their kids were in any trouble spots around the house,” said Horrocks whose team conducted interviews with parents about their safety concerns for their children.
Initial plans of having a vest for the child were scrapped because a belt was deemed to be more comfortable and less restricting.
“When the child walks near a sensor the GPS sends a signal to the parents,” said Horrocks. “We’ve done about six to seven weeks of research and the idea itself would work. We’d look to put it in electrical stores like Dick Smith and Harvey Norman as well as baby shops.”
The Marketing Trade Show takes place at the University of Waikato Management School on May 20 from 5 – 7pm.
On Track: Waikato University marketing and communication students from left to right Sam Horrocks, Scott Joblin and Paul Gray. Absent: Greg Henderson.