Segmented Sports Guard with Compression Strap
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional sports guards, such as shin and arm guards, compromise flexibility for protection, leading to reduced dexterity and energy expenditure during play, and often shift or become loose, requiring frequent adjustments.
Innovation Solution
A sports guard design featuring a hard shell outer layer with articulated panels and a soft foam or woven fabric underlayment, combined with a 360-degree compression strap system, allowing for flexible movement while maintaining secure fit and protection, using living hinges or pliable inserts to control flexion and prevent shifting.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Strength
If conventional shin guards use rigid plates with fabric encasement, then protection against impacts is provided, but flexibility and natural motion are compromised
Solution Approach 1:
The shin guard is divided into multiple rigid plates (front plate, side plates, rear plate) that are separated by flexible fabric channels rather than being encased together. This segmentation allows each plate to move independently, providing protection while maintaining flexibility and natural leg motion.
Solution Approach 2:
Flexible fabric channels and spacers are used between the rigid plates to maintain spacing and allow relative motion. The fabric acts as a flexible connector that permits the plates to move independently during leg flexion and extension, resolving the contradiction between rigid protection and flexible motion.
2Stability of the object's composition
If conventional shin guards use elasticized fabric straps, then the guard can be secured to the leg, but the guard slips downward or rotates backward during play
Solution Approach 1:
The strap system uses a dynamic configuration where straps pass through channels in the rigid plates and can be adjusted to wrap around the leg in specific patterns. This dynamic strapping arrangement adapts to leg movement while maintaining secure positioning, preventing downward slip and backward rotation during play.
Solution Approach 2:
The straps serve multiple functions: securing the guard to the leg, preventing downward slip, preventing backward rotation, and allowing for easy adjustment. The same strap system accomplishes all these positioning tasks simultaneously, improving both stability and reliability.
3Ease of operation
If conventional shin guards use fabric encasement with gaps between pads, then flexibility is allowed, but adequate protection is compromised
Solution Approach 1:
Multiple rigid plates are positioned at different locations (front, sides, rear) to provide comprehensive protection coverage. The segmentation allows each plate to protect specific areas while the flexible fabric channels between them maintain flexibility, achieving both adequate protection and flexibility simultaneously.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
The design provides enhanced protection and flexibility, preventing the guards from shifting during play, allowing for natural leg motion and reducing energy expenditure, while maintaining a secure and comfortable fit.
Implementation Method 1
a padding layer formed of one or more blocking panels of compressible foam
Implementation Method 2
bridge areas of reduced material thickness which effectively form living hinges that allow the side panels to rotate and move with respect to the shin bone panel
Data Source
AI summary
A protective sports guard can include a lower component that includes a hard shell outer layer attached atop a flexible padding layer; an upper component that includes a hard shell outer layer attached atop a flexible padding layer; a central component attached to and straddling the lower component and the upper component and that includes a hard shell outer layer; and an elongate strap. The elongate strap can be fixedly attached at one end to the flexible padding layer of the lower component, releasably and variably attached at another end to itself, and configured to wrap around the lower component in excess of one full revolution and to envelop and compress a human body part for a compression fit.