Brandon Middle School - Short Stuff - Brief Article

Girls' Life, Oct-Nov, 2002

NASA scientists, engineers and chain store managers met with students of Brandon Middle School in Mississippi to confer about a solution to an important community issue-runaway shopping carts! Seventh-graders Joel Anderson, patricia Rincon, Lauren Rushing and Patrick Hall devised an automatic braking mechanism for their award-winning invention The Stopping Cart.

The kinds' engineering ingenuity landed them first place in the Bayer/National Science Foundation Award, and will save stores tons of money. Officials representing national chain stores told the kids they pay an average of $5,000 per store nationwide in claims related to shopping cart damage to cars in their parking lots. The brakes are positioned at the handle of the cart and help stop the cart quickly and easily. Easy student won a trip to Walt Disney World and received a $5,000 U.S. savings bond. Now, if we could only get a cart that comes with power steering and a five-disc CD changer.