Door ding stoppers

The door ding stoppers, (from left): Severin Luhr (17),
Leona Schultz (17), Marisa Jain (17), Karl-Bernd Burbach (teacher),
Laura Krieglstein (16), Vincent Gramlich (15).

THEIR idea will not stop the overloaded mom in the big Fortuner from accidentally banging her door into your car, but it will stop your door from doing unto her as she did to you.

The idea for a new car door brake system, called “i-protect”, was developed by German high school pupils and will next be made by Kiekert, a leader in automotive closure system technology.

Students at Cologne’s Erzbischoefliche Liebfrauenschule, Germany recently won first place in a
“business@school” competition sponsored by the Boston Consulting Group.

One out of every three side-door latches worldwide is based on a product design developed by Kiekert, which group sponsored the student team in the competition and will further develop and industrialise their innovation.

“Our work with business@school, as well as our partnership programmes with universities throughout the world, helps us maintain our position as the technology leader in automotive locking systems,” said Dr Karl Krause, Kiekert’s CEO.

The innovative “brake system” built into Kiekert’s i-protect system will stop car doors from slamming into parked cars, garage walls and other obstacles and potentially could eliminate millions of irritating and often costly dings and dents.

Kiekert admits their new sensor-based system will not stop other people from opening their door onto your car, but said it will reduce costly insurance claims by automatically stopping car doors from striking other objects as they are being opened.

The Cologne student group will retain patent rights to its basic, award-winning technology as part of the “business@school” programme and its partnership with Kiekert.