The First Airport Shoe Scanner Was Created By An Rockford Eagle Scout

It was 2003, and after 9/11, a sudden increase in security checkpoints at airports was leading to extremely long wait times for travelers.

It was 15-year-old Josh Pfluger, who was in the final stages of becoming an Eagle Scout who decided that his project would best serve the community by lessening the wait time at OHare International Airport.

So, he and his fellow scouts went into his Rockford, Illinois garage, and started designing a device to detect metal that wasn't supposed to be present in shoes.

The homemade invention was simple yet intuitive. A box with a metal detector - letting passengers know if their shoes will trigger alarms when they get to the gate.

It would speed up lines - if your shoe set the machine off, you knew to send your shoes through the X-ray instead of getting through and having to be searched.

After 120 hours of design attempts and building over a dozen scanners, they settled on their design: A box with a small metal detector wand held up with bungee cords, which beeps if there's a violation, with a flag, TSA logo, and a section for "Place Foot Here" on the plexiglass face.

Of course, it also says "Eagle Project, Troop 37."

"It's real cool," Pfluger told CBS News back in 2003. "If other airports call me, I'm going to do it as a job."

The US Department of Aviation at O'Hare, told CBS - "It's obviously not a certified machine, but it does initially help in the screening process," said Monique Bond, spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Aviation at O'Hare. "It's a unique idea ... giving the Boy Scouts an opportunity to demonstrate their merit."

It just shows, you can have all sorts of impact if you put the rubber to the road - it doesn't matter if you're 15 or 50.