ideas

The origin of Nanoventive began by questioning the consensus and status quo, with regards to current sports products. We started with a simple series of questions:

• Can we produce a significantly improved sports equipment product, by the inclusion of graphene, into the design and manufacture of that product? 
• As we then look to improve the functionality of that product by way of including graphene, can we go a stage further to ensure it’s the best available, when measured by a variety of metrics? 
• Can we analyse and question the origins of that original product, to improve on its engineering, to then further enhance its sporting edge?
• Can we help to bring to market the mostly highly engineered sports product available and can we ensure the product represents excellent value for money, when compared to other elite level products currently available?

After applying these questions to potentially disrupt and challenge the current market consensus, we then began to consider what were the simplest sports products we could make a dramatic improvement to, with the addition of graphene into a compound? 

On the basis that graphene at its atomic level, is up to 200 times stronger than steel, the logical answer was to concentrate on sports protection equipment first; most notably body armour, in all its forms. 

Our collective decision then evolved into considering where to start, on our head to toe protection programme? Designing a state of the art football shin pad was agreed. The shin pad has been in existence for centuries, shin pads were worn by Greek and Roman soldiers in battle. That armour was also worn by African warriors, the word “ZEMPI” for the Nanoventive body armour has its origins from the ancient African word for armour. 

In ancient times the shin pad was regarded as a vital piece of self-defence equipment, in football this vital price of equipment, which can help prevent career ending injuries, is often overlooked and is an afterthought for many players at every level of competition.

Moving back to the 200 times stronger than steel maxim, we wouldn’t wear steel armour plating on our shins or other body parts, therefore, during our brain-storms we began to question what percentage of graphene, mixed with a resin - reusable compound, would offer the same protection as steel? The exact science wasn’t available, but the dialogue developed along these lines...

• If we used 50% of graphene, vis a vis steel, the shin pad would be one hundred times stronger than steel.
• If we used 10% of graphene, vis a vis steel, the shin pad would be twenty times stronger than steel.
• If we used 1.0% of graphene, vis a vis steel, the shin pad would be two times stronger then steel. 

For sure, it was only a rough outline but the idea began to take shape. If we could create a shin-pad that theoretically had 2.5% graphene contained in the compound, that shin pad should be five times stronger than steel.