Creator: Gordon McComb

Description: The keyless lock box uses an optical finger navigation (OFN) sensor as a combination decoder. This sensor must be in direct contact with your finger. Movement across the small surface of the sensor is converted to X and Y distance measurements (up, down, left, and right). The combination, if entered correctly, initiates the movement of a motor that unlocks the box.

Response: I thought this was cool because even though there is a combination lock on the briefcase, the actual combination is over a small sensor. The combination lock is just a way to throw someone off. I think that’s genius because you can’t solve a problem (opening a locked box) if you don’t know the problem (where the lock is). The misleading presence of the combination lock is another level of security itself in addition to the certain up/down/right/left sequence. I think this could be improved in security like if the combination lock moves around too much (for instance if someone was tying to guess the combination lock to open it) then the box could let out an alarm sound which would only stop when the correct hand gesture is input.