MUSKOGEE, Okla. -- It's a new way to save lives. A group of Muskogee High School students are working to create a tracker to help decrease the number of child abductions and missing Alzheimer patients.
To the untrained eye, it's just a tangle of wires and circuit boards.
“We would use something very similar because we have to create a bread board," student Ashlee Cumbey said.
A soldering wire in the hands of an engineer could turn the tangle into something that could save lives.
“Approximately 2,000 children go missing and 960,000 Alzheimer patients wonder off a day," student Joseph Vieira said.
It’s a tracker to bring parents, family members and friends comfort.
“This is a growing problem in the United States," student Zoe Kelmer said. "The trackers out there now clip to the kids backpack, get sewn into the clothes and they’re watches for them but all of those are something that’s way for an abductor to see or take off.”
In 2016, there were more than 465,000 National Crime Information Center entries for missing children.
“Ours is going to be small and discrete," Vieira said.
Four Muskogee High School students have worked on the logistics since October.
“Alzheimer patients if they’re not going found in 24 hours they are usually found dead," Kolmer said. "It’s just going to continue to get worse.”
The seniors are hopeful it will make it on store shelves.
“They will have enough documentation to apply for a provisional patten," Project Lead the Way instructor Jennifer Lopez said.
The team of engineers plan to have the prototype finished by March and quickly get answers to a growing problem.
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