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Pennyaline[_4_]

wrote:
> Nancy Young wrote:
>> I drink seltzer by the bucket, I buy 12 packs, I can
>> usually handle 4 at a time. I put three on the bottom
>> of the cart and keep one up top to scan. I just say,
>> I have 4 of these and they deal with it.
>>
>> Twice over all this time, the cashier has alarmedly said,
>> Do you have something on the bottom of your cart???
>> Yes, three more of these. Oh, whew, and I'll see this
>> light flashing right near the edge closest to the cart.
>> Check cart bottom! Check cart bottom!, something like
>> that.
>>
>> Two questions come up, why does it only rarely notice I
>> have stuff down there and how the heck can it tell? With all
>> the legs and carts going by, a detector would be going off all
>> the time.
>>
>> Perhaps the eye in the sky is spying on the customers?
>>
>> nancy the nosy
>
> I do this kind of stuff for a living...
>
> Let's say all carts are the same, and everyone, by default, stands at
> roughly the same place in front of the cashier station. The cashier is
> going to know that when a certain part of the cart (let's say, the
> thing you push) reaches a certain point (that chip some moron clipped
> out of the conveyor bed when they dropped an exceptionally hefty and
> hard watermelon).
>
> Let's say a photoeye, or two, or three, or an array cross the checkout
> lane at the bottom of the shopping cart. Let's say those photocells
> are wired 120v with a normally open relay at the end. Break the beam
> on the photoeye, break the 120v circuit, which closes the relay to a
> light on the cart side of the conveyor bed, causing "check under cart"
> to illuminate.
>
> It's really inexpensive, easy to maintain, chimps can install it, and
> ll you need to do is train your checkout girl to know when to look (so
> she doesn't have to know where).

How would one keep children from setting the alarms off?
<I mean, if that's all it would take... kids're always down there in
bottom of the cart territory>