ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, October 6, 1996 TAG: 9610070073
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JOEL TURNER STAFF WRITER
It's a familiar sight: a dog hanging out the window of a car or truck as the vehicle speeds down the road.
If the vehicle crashes, the dog often slams against the vehicle's dashboard, door or is thrown from the vehicle.
Each year, more than 100,000 dogs are killed or injured in motor vehicle accidents in the United States.
Three students at the Roanoke Valley Governor's School for Science and Technology want to change that - and provide protection for dogs in accidents.
As part of a class project, they have designed a restraining device they think will help reduce injuries to dogs.
The invention is a national winner in the transportation and travel category of the 1996 Young Inventors and Creators Program, sponsored by the National Inventive Thinking Association.
The students - Shana Waller, Josh Deitz and Gregory Holder - will be flown to Washington this month for NITA's Creative and Inventive Thinking Conference and recognized with national winners in other contest categories. They will explain the project to several hundred people at the conference, and their device will be on display at the Smithsonian Institution.
The students' invention appears simple, but it required extensive research and testing.
The device is a vest with straps that slip over the dog's body. The dog is placed in the vehicle's seat, and the seat belt loops are fitted through the straps.
During their research, the students discovered that there are two car restraining devices for dogs on the market, but neither is patented.
One of the requirements in their Product Design Engineering Class at the Governor's School was to design a product that does not have a patent.
"We designed ours like a vest because we thought that would give more support to the dog," Waller said. "The other devices on the market have restraining straps."
What made the students' assignment even more challenging is a Governor's School rule that prohibits the use of vertebrate animals such as dogs in any student research or experimental project.
"We had to make a model of a dog because of the rules. We used pictures and diagrams to make it," Waller said.
Deitz said the students also tested materials for the vest restraint and determined that nylon would be the strongest.
They used their knowledge of physics and equations to calculate the weight and pressure on the restraining device at different speeds. They tested the device by dropping the dog model off the Wasena Bridge. The model was attached to a rope that halted the drop.
Holder said the students were surprised to be national winners because their invention was only a third place winner in the Governor's School contest for student projects and received no recognition in the Virginia Junior Academy of Science competition.
"We were disappointed by that, but our teachers thought more of the project and entered it into the national competition," Waller said.
They worked on the project under the direction of Governor's School faculty members Ken Weddle and John Cannady.
The students will apply for a patent for their invention and hope they can work out an arrangement with a company to manufacture and sell it. They figure it would sell for $15 to $20.
"We're going to see what it would cost to market it," Waller said. "I'm definitely going to use it on my resume, and maybe it could help pay some for college." Waller, a senior at Patrick Henry High in Roanoke, plans to attend Spelman College in Atlanta. Deitz, a junior at Patrick Henry, hopes to enroll at West Virginia University, and Holder, a Patrick Henry junior, wants to go to the University of Virginia.
LENGTH: Medium: 75 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: NHAT MEYER/Staff. Josh Deitz (left), 16, Gregory Holderby CNB(center), 16, and Shana Waller, 17, pose with a seat restraining
device for dogs that they designed. color.