As Christopher Yakacki, Ph.D., told the crowd of entrepreneurs, judges and fans at the NFL’s 1st & Future innovation showcase the day before Super Bowl LII, “We’re a little different. We’re engineering professors that have been obsessed with finding new materials to improve human health.”
Yakacki was referring to himself and fellow businessman Carl Frick, Ph.D., who are among the founders of Impressio, a company that specializes in using materials science to create solutions for health problems. Their five-minute pitch to a panel of NFL-chosen experts won them the 1st & Future “Advancements in Protective Technology” award.
The pitch? Yakacki, a professor at University of Colorado Denver, and Frick, a professor at the University of Wyoming, presented their advances with a material called a liquid crystal elastomer, which they believe could be used in a safer foam lining for football helmets. Yakacki said during Impressio’s presentation that the material, which has been around for a while but has not yet been developed into a usable form, is highly dissipative and can absorb and distribute the impact of dangerous hits.
“What we want to do is blur the line between a solid and a liquid. So want to keep the structural integrity of a solid, mix it with the viscous effects of liquid, and get what we’re gonna call a liquid crystal elastomer,” Yakacki said at the event.
The liquid crystal elastomer rotates when it receives an impact, allowing it to absorb and disperse the energy from an impact better than the foams currently used in helmets and pads.
The LCE foam will supposedly have the same shape, size, and weight as the foams currently in use; Yakacki and his colleagues told the 1st & Future panel that Impressio has a partnership with University of Colorado Denver to test a prototype in regulation football helmets. The material is also customizable and can be programmed to stay in a crushed position or to recover to its original shape in one to two seconds, Yakacki explained in response to a panel question.
Get The Latest Sports Tech News In Your Inbox!
“Our model is actually relatively simple. What we want to do is we want to replace the foams that are currently used from just typical commercial materials and put in foams that are liquid crystalline material,” Frick said at 1st & Future.
“Eventually what we believe is we can take our liquid crystalline technology, our elastomer technology, and we can put that directly into a helmet and therefore we can increase the safety of that helmet.”
Responding to a panelist’s question, Frick said the foam is being designed for helmets right now, but could soon make its way into use for shoulder pads and other protective football equipment. The price right now is steep, Yakacki said, but as Impressio works on the material and secures its supply chain, LCE foam could become much more affordable.
With the $50,000 grant from the NFL, Impressio is hoping its technology becomes NFL standard, too.