Inspired by the death of Trayvon Martin, four undergraduate engineering students created a black box for humans, which could serve as evidence in court, reports Yahoo! News. Black boxes are indestructible devices that records cockpit conversations and flight data. They are installed in airplanes and trains so that investigators can use them to help determine what happened just before a crash. BYU-Hawaii students praised the theory behind the creation of the personal black box by the students. However, they said it is still too imperfect to be used in real life. “I think it is a good thought in theory, but I don’t think it would work very well because if you’re going to kill someone, I will just steal the black box and then there would be no evidence,” said Adrienne Cardoza, a senior in TESOL from Ohio. Saki Suyama, a sophomore in TESOL from Japan, said, “It might be effective, but if it is broken or something happens to it, and you can’t record it accurately and correctly, then it is not going to work. So it will be useless and pointless.” Participating in the 2013 Cornell Cup in Orlando, Fla., Brett Kaplan, Jack Vorwald, Mike Burns and Ryan Holmes, the four undergraduate engineering students from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, said their creation was inspired by the lack of evidence in the death of Trayvon Martin, reports Yahoo! News. According to The Huffington Post, Trayvon Martin, 17, was an unarmed African-American that was shot by a watch captain, George Zimmerman, 28, who claimed the incident was self-defense. Because of this claimed and the lack of evidence, Zimmerman court case was still being investigated. To prevent such cases from happening, they said they created a black box with an audio recording that was heavily encrypted, completely tamper-proof and admissible as evidence in U.S. courtrooms, reports Yahoo! News. It also served, as an unquestionable, unbiased, on-the-scene account should the person in possession of the black box meet with a mysterious death, adds Yahoo! News. However, the black box is still not retail ready because of its large size (the size of a Big Mac box) with a red button on top to activate the audio recording, reports Yahoo! News. It goes on to report it is also not indestructible, unlike an airplane black box. Dilan Endsley, a sophomore majoring in psychology from California, said, “I think it will be effective because we will always have the evidence that we need and to make a fair decision. But it also very unethical because it takes away our privacy right as human beings.”
Writer: Robinia Tan~Multimedia Journalist
