A student from Brunel University has won a special award from Design Innovation in Plastics for a brand new product which will help people with achilles injuries.
Our congratulations go to Thomas Ledsome, who created CORDALT, The First Active Achilles Injury Prevention Device.
Credit: New Designers – Mark Cocksedge
Thomas won the prize, sponsored by DIP, for most innovative use of plastics at the New Designers Show, which took place in London recently over two weeks. New Designers presents the work of 2,500 hand-picked graduate design talents from around the UK and is the longest running and leading design showcase in the country.
A wearable device, CORDALT collects data on the primary causes of overuse, and displays it in a data visualised application. It enables active tracking of the development of the injury and the health of the achilles. The app will enable the user to be more informed about the health of their achilles, with information and education accessed via a main dashboard.
Credit: Design Innovation in Plastics
Judges, Steve Blanks, Alicia Chrysostomou, Alastair Swanwick and Kristen Tapping – all DIP committee members – were impressed not only by the product but by the materials research which Thomas had conducted.
Steve Blanks said: “The product was well presented in both graphic illustration and prototype model formats. Thomas talked confidently and passionately about his product and the research undertaken to develop a solution.
“We were impressed with the fact that alongside traditional reaction injection moulding of polyurethane the student had considered 3DAM (Additive Manufacturing) as a viable means of production for one component which couldn’t be produced by any other means.”
Thomas used polyurethane as the choice of material for manufacture, due to its energy dispersion and comfort properties. CORDALT uses a lattice structure which makes it more lightweight while also adding another layer of compression, increasing the contact times of heavy impacts, as well as helping to distribute some of the impact stress away from the achilles.
He created his product after his research told him that achilles injuries and subsequent ruptures were the most common injury across multiple sports – and often the most severe - so he was inspired to produce something which would be impactful to the user.
Thomas is currently seeking funding for his project which would enable him to move to the next critical stages of development, including more user testing involving larger numbers of people.
Credit: New Designers – Mark Cocksedge
Credit: @Nanakinq
Credit: Thomas Ledsome
Find out more about Thomas Ledsome on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomas-ledsome
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