Despite the drumbeat of controversy surrounding the National Football League, the television ratings for the first weekend of playoffs spiked 11% year-over-year. While the league itself seems bulletproof, its players are decidedly not. Traumatic brain injuries from repeated blows to the head have gotten a lot of attention from the media recently and even from Hollywood in this year’s Oscar-contender-turned-snub “Concussion.”
Now, one of the NFL’s own, all-pro cornerback Shawn Springs, is trying to do something about it. The former player for the Seattle Seahawks, Washington Redskins, and New England Patriots, is now the CEO of Windpact, a company trying to put its patented “Crash Cloud” technology into helmets not just on the gridiron, but also on soccer fields, baseball diamonds, and elsewhere.
The technology doesn’t just absorb impacts. It also disperses energy from such blows. “It’s kind of like an airbag with a mattress inside,” Springs says.
Despite playing 13 seasons in the NFL, the inspiration for Springs' company didn’t come from the sport he loves.
“Windpact came to be because of an accident where my son was in a car seat, and the technology that was in the car seat kind of saved my son in a 65-mph collision,” he says. “I thought the technology worked so well I immediately called up the parent company, Safety 1st, who had this technology in the car seat, and I wanted to investigate how this technology worked.”
The absorption and dispersion properties in the car seat were the impetus for Windpact's own Crash Cloud technology. Here's how it works, according to the company’s website:
The Crash Cloud™ system is made up of three important elements: Wind Springs™, Impact Vents™ and Refresh Vents™. These self-recovering airbags are activated instantly on impact, absorbing the energy of a hit.
As each Wind Spring™ is compressed, energy is transferred through the Impact Vents™, away from the point of impact.
Wind Springs and Refresh Vents then work together to rapidly re-inflate each Crash Cloud. This enables both the system and the user to withstand the multiple impacts that can often make up a single event.
Windpact sees its technology as a way to protect people participating in a wide range of activities. Its first product to market, expected later this year, is a bicycle helmet that will retail in the $100-$120 range.
“More people ride bikes than play team sports,” Springs points out. “So for us, we felt the first product that should come on the market ... would be a bicycle helmet.”
And they won’t stop there. Windpact may not become the brand making helmets for football, baseball, hockey, lacrosse, or even cricket, but they hope their technology will be purchased by existing helmet makers to make their own products safer.