The Gun Chip
Carter Pike
Introduction
Although guns have never been very safe, some
companies like Armatix are trying to make guns
safer in an ever-changing world with multiple
mass shootings a month. According to CNN, there
was 346 mass shootings in 2017; that’s an average
of about twenty-nine a month or almost one a day.
We don’t need stricter gun laws; we need safer
guns. Many companies and individuals have tried
to combat this problem with a new kind of gun
called the “Smart Gun.” These guns allow the gun
to fire only in the hands of the owner, but that still
doesn’t stop a mass shooting like what occurred in
Las Vegas. I first became interested in this
problem after watching a movie called “Crash”
that gave me the idea to try and help solve crimes
such as shootings that no one witnessed. In the
past decade, about 50% of all murder cases have
not ended with an arrest. With new technology, I
hope to cut that number. If I can successfully
create a device to fit inside of or on a gun, I could
help solve homicides including mass shootings and
police brutality cases too.
Over the past decade, the number of mass
shootings and homicides by gunshot have
increased considerably. More and more people
have guns that shouldn’t have them, and what they
do with their firearm cannot be monitored. The
Gun Chip will have various applications in today's
world; it could help further monitor police and
civilian firearms, or it could be used to solve cases
by making guns easier to track down. Police
brutality cases are on the rise, and if police guns
were monitored, it could help solve some of the
cases. When a police officer fires his or her gun,
the chip would record the shot and send the
information back to a database located somewhere
like a 911 operator center. The Gun Chip will be
able to monitor guns all over the country, making
the country safer while keeping our second
amendment rights. This technology could possibly
compromise privacy a bit, but if we want to keep
our right to bear any arms we want, then we need
to be monitored. If we had this technology in our
guns for the past few years, police could have had
located the Las Vegas shooter much faster and
prevented the mass number of casualties.
RESEARCH POSTER PRESENTATION DESIGN © 2015
www.PosterPresentations.com
Methods and Materials Research Question
• Raspberry pi B+ model 3 If I can successfully create a working prototype of my idea,
1 Gather all materials needed for this experiment
• Bread Board the Gun Chip, I can aid the future of gun safety.
2 Solder all the necessary components together and • Male to Female connectors
sync the chips together • Barometric Pressure Sensor Conclusion
3 Program the components that will fit into the device • GPS Tracker After gathering all my data and tests, I have concluded that
4 Fit components into housing unit • Power supply the device sort of worked, but not all the time. The design
• Soldering Iron and the parts that I’ve used are rather large and require
5 Fit housing unit to gun or gun-like devise
considerable upkeep and maintenance. The device as it
6 Test device stands right now wouldn’t be practical for any guns today,
but with time and more research and engineering, the
7 Repeat steps 3-6 until the device accurately measures
device could be made smaller and more efficient to work in
when and where the gun is fired the firearms of civilians and police officers in the future.
What I believe to be the main culprit for my lack of success
is the code. I used Python 3.5.3 on a Raspberry pi to code
my chip. This was the first time I ever coded, so it would
be very probable to have bugs or imperfections. Another
source of possible error was the style of chip I decided to
use for this experiment.
Figure 3: Learning how to code using Python 3.5.3 on the
Raspberry pi
Figure 4: The
geolocation code I
Figure 2: Me soldering the barometric pressure sensor to the have written in Next Steps
bread board Python on the pi
As I move forward with the product, I can explore other
applications including emergency services such as EMTs.
Figure 1: Raspberry Pi If I were to take the product to market, people would
hooked up to bread board
with the barometric
probably say that it's an invasion of privacy and probably
pressure sensor make the NRA quite upset, but at least we could all keep
our constitutional right to bear arms. Sometimes people
must sacrifice a small portion of privacy for safety. If this
Results were to go to market though, the government would have to
decide how to use it; it could be legally required in all guns
The gun chip never worked for me probably because of the code, so it never sent back any graphs so that I could compile the
data into a table. Another reason that the gun chip did not work as originally intended was because of the type of chip I used. civilian and police, or just police; also would it be sold
The type of chip I used was a barometric pressure sensor. I thought that this would work because the gun changes the pressure separately or already installed, it would probably have to be
around it, but it does not change enough to get a good reading in an open everyday environment. There were many sources of pre installed so that it can’t be taken out if the law requires
error in this year's experiment, but these are all good things to work on for next year’s science fair. it, but if it isn’t required by law people would have the
choice to be able to monitor their gun or not. When I
continue next year, I will be better readied to write the
code, so that I can gather good results and put them into a
data table. Another thing to consider in next year’s science
fair would be instead of using a barometric pressure sensor
to use a decibel meter. The decibel meter would likely do a
better job at detecting when the gun is fired because guns
produce a high number of decibels when discharged.
References
Cannon, A. (2000). The new smart guns. U.S. News & World Report,
128(3), 26.
Kimberly, T. J. (2014). A HIGHER CALIBER OF REGULATION: IS
MAKING SMART-GUN TECHNOLOGY MANDATORY
Figure 5: The barometric pressure sensor readings of Figure 6: This is me
CONSTITUTIONALLY PERMISSIBLE?. Case Western Reserve Law
when the gun was fired. No change noted. testing my device at the
Review, 65(1), 251-278.
Governor's Gun Club