feasability

Nanoventive has created relationships with some of the globe’s finest sports product design agencies. We start the design consultation and process from the simple premise of questioning a current sports product's functionality and design. 

We pull the established product apart, questioning everything with regards to form and function. We then challenge our selected agency, working hand in hand with our own in house operations team, with the task of creating a more radical design, based on the requirements of the product and the enhancements required in order to make it the best of breed. 

During this stage the currently available product will be tested through the network of sports science relationships we’ve developed, with global sports institutes. As an example, it’s worth concentrating on the Zempi body armour products, in particular the Zempi football shin pad. 

The shin pad is designed ultimately to protect players from the threat of broken bones, resulting from unfortunate or malicious tackles. Whilst wearing a shin pad is not a 100% guarantee from preventing such injuries occurring, conventional wisdom and indeed certain scientific evidence, would suggest that wearing a pad will help to prevent certain injuries. 

If we accept the findings that graphene can be up to 200 times stronger than steel, can we find an optimum level whereby we could design and manufacture a shin pad which is theoretically as strong as steel, but is considerably: lighter, more flexible, dissipates moisture more effectively and copes with impacts by way of absorption and repulsion, far better than any current shin pads do? 

The form and design can’t compromise on the core purpose of any product we design, namely protection, in relation to the shin pad. Therefore, we don’t radicalise for the sake of invention and we don’t over-engineer products unnecessarily. 

We subject the shin pad to impact tests by way of robots. The simplest method chosen is to organise what we term as a “robot kick test”. We take standard shin pads, manufactured by many of the leading sports brands and subject them to kicks from a robot limb. When the pad breaks, due to the force of the kick, we record the force required to break the pad. 

We then compare how the Zempi shin pad prototypes, designed using our protectshun compound, stands up to comparison. Once we’ve established that our pad is X times stronger than the current average pad available, we should be able to make judgments with regards to how less likely a player is to suffer a leg breaking injury wearing our pad, as opposed to wearing the most popular pads currently available. 

Naturally, we can’t use live simulations, but we can also use plastic material placed behind the pad to mimic the bone and tissue density of human legs; male, female and child. 

Only when we’ve established this type of 'breaking point', do we move onto the finer details of the project design. It’s at this point when the finer aspects of the pad’s aesthetic qualities are considered, we don’t compromise the safety for the sake of the aesthetic. 

We also consult with who we consider to be experts, during the consultation and design stage. In reference to the Zempi football shinpad, we’ll consult with players at all levels of the football pyramid including; coaches, managers and physiotherapists, to ensure the product we intend to bring to market is in accordance with all of their demands. Nanoventive looks to receive approval from the relevant sports bodies and any testing standards authorities, to ensure our products are not only state of the art, but fit for purpose.