Wilson 6th grader, family wins $20K for car seat invention

With her family, Denton created a "Beat the Heat Car Seat," an affordable car seat with a pressure pad and heat sensor. The family made a system using a $60 kit and the oldest brother's coding skills and tested it on their pet cat.

If a baby is left inside a hot car, the car seat sensor sends a text to the parent warning them they needed to head back to their car. If they don't, the system will call 911 and provide a GPS location.

The Denton family entered the machine in several contests with no luck. Then, Denton found out about the Citgo challenge to promote science, technology, engineering and math.

"Why not just enter that and test our luck?" she said.

It finally paid off -- this year, the Denton family won the grand prize from Citgo for $20,000.

Denton also worked on a device with her classmates and won $15,000 from Samsung for a wearable device that helps prevent child drownings. The band goes from green to yellow to red to show how at-risk someone is for drowning.

Denton's family says they are saving the $20,000 to pay for her to go to college. She plans on pursuing a degree in bio-medical engineering.