This is Technology Bytes, episode 12 for May 28th, 2023.
♪♪♪ Technology Bytes is a microcast where I share my brief insights on an interesting technology.
My name is Joel.
Enjoy, and here we go.
For the second week in a row, I am talking about what I would deem a strange technology.
Last week, you may remember, we talked about pool pump systems.
Today, we’re talking about car seats.
Yes, those things that hold little children safely in a car.
You may wonder how a car seat is landing in a podcast about technology.
Well, in and of themselves, you may think all they do is hold a child, but there is much that goes into them.
As my wife and I were searching for a new car seat for our grandson, who has outgrown the rear-facing seat that he’s been sitting in, we had options in the store that were amazing, and the cost was anywhere from $120 up to $250.
Trying to figure that out and looking at the technology involved and looking at what they do, for the most part, most of the car seats that we saw in the forward-facing sense have a growth pattern to them.
They will hold a child at 30 pounds all the way up to 80 pounds, and the car seat just grows with that child.
There’s moving parts, there is belts that fit all kinds of different sizes and shapes of children, there are connections to cars to keep them safe.
The list can go on and on, but the idea is that now my son and daughter-in-law have a seat that will grow with their child as he continues to grow with them.
The reality is that security is probably one of the most important things when it comes to a car seat.
How does that car seat react with the car that it’s in to make sure the child is safe?
When I grew up, it was not a requirement.
We probably just jumped around in the car to our parents' dismay, distracting our parents and getting smacked maybe, who knows what.
But in these days and times, children are in car seats for a very long time, and so security really matters.
In the one that we bought today, they have straps that mount into cars.
Car manufacturers have built into the seats in the second row, most often, latches that your car seat can just hook right into.
It’s almost like a seat belt latch, and that is the most secure anchor to hold children securely in the car.
It actually holds the car seat securely.
On top of that, you’ve got the strapping for the child that then has the security for that child if there were an accident, which we, of course, never want to have.
But security is of ultimate importance, and there are a number of different ways that the car seats can be secure from passing a seat belt through and latching that and then locking it in very tight.
You can then have the shoulder holsters for the child, and it’s almost like a racing harness at that point in the car.
And the technology that goes into that to keep that child safe, to make sure that the child is not harmed when the seat has to do its duty, to do its performance.
There has to be enough give so that we’re not breaking bones or breaking children and that they are allowed to move just enough to keep them safe but not to harm them in the way that they’re strapped in.
And the car for it to, for the car seat to maintain the child’s structure so that it doesn’t get hurt.
It’s almost like you’ve seen in cars with side airbags and those kind of things.
The car seats are built to envelop the cars and the child, I mean.
And the technology that goes into that is quite fascinating.
And how they hook together that keeps some children, not all, there are the escape artists, but most children can’t get out.
So you don’t have that to worry about as you’re driving down the road.
And so that security is of ultimate importance.
The second thing that you have to think about is comfort because oftentimes when children are in cars, we are going for a short run to the grocery store or maybe just a quick run to relatives' house or something like that.
But at times we’re on the road to faraway relatives.
We may be in the car for hours and having a child secure but also comfortable to be able to sit for extended periods of time and to be comfortable in the seat and to have amenities that allow them to interact with the rest of the people in the cabin of the car and to be able to sit there comfortably is of ultimate importance as well.
And you know that kids in cars, they’ll eventually fall asleep and to make sure that their head’s not bouncing all over the place and that the seat holds them for comfort as well as security.
The other thing that I find important, especially as I get older and my grandchildren get bigger, is the ease of use.
How do you get them in and out?
How do you make sure that you strap them in properly to keep them safe?
And so that is really important.
I know that the car seat my grandson was in, as soon as he saw it, he would start crying because it wasn’t comfortable.
It wasn’t allowing for his growth.
It was very difficult to put him into it.
And when we put him in this new seat, it actually fit him.
It actually made him feel more comfortable and it made it real easy for me to put him in that seat and then to be comfortable with his safety and security while we were on the road.
And so ease of use is also very important and being able to understand how it works so that you put the child in properly and that all the latches are done properly.
And all of that is encompassed by some amazing technology.
You have the seat where the child is sitting.
You have the back of the seat that envelops the child.
You have just the right amount of cushion.
You have just the right amount of structure.
You have just the right amount and shape of plastic and anchor points that hold so that plastic doesn’t give and that the child is secure in case of an accident.
And all of that takes lots of engineering and lots of thought.
And when I think of technology, I often think of engineering because that’s my background.
I have a degree in engineering, and when I see things like that, it’s not just something that’s thrown together.
There’s been much testing.
There’s been much thought.
There’s been a lot of design work and redesign work and figuring out exactly how this seat can fit in everything from a F-450 super duty pickup truck to a Elantra and making sure that that works the same in each of those situations so that you’re not having to buy a car seat for the model of car that you have, but it works with all of them.
And the technology that goes into making that happen, to make sure it works properly, to make sure it’s useful, to make sure it’s usable, is all quite amazing and takes a feat of engineering that we might never fully understand if we are not in the factory or beside the engineers watching that design work.
But at the end of the day, I’m very thankful for those who have worked so diligently to keep children safe in vehicles.
Not only my children as they were growing up, but now my grandchildren as they are growing up, and I want to say thank you for the technology that these people have put into these devices that keep my grandchildren safe.
You have been listening to the TechnologyBytes microcast.
Until next time, continue enjoying your technology.
