Ordinary Materials, Extraordinary Powers

Humanity interacts with textiles 99% of every day, 99% of their time alive on this planet. So as a global society how can we use these ubiquitous materials to make a fairer, happier and healthier society.

Ubiquitous and ordinary these materials may be, but they now have the power to change societal health forever. Knitted textiles are made from natural and synthetic yarns and fibres – more of the former and less of the latter if possible please. These textiles form the basis of clothes, apparel, wind turbine blades, stents for the heart, seating, bedding, sporting equipment and many other things besides.

The ordinary materials that we touch and interact with, every day can now measure your respiration rate, gait, temperature, strain and relative pressure. I hear that collective sigh – SO WHAT?

Let me take gait, how your feet hit the ground to you and me.

Image by Freepik

Grandma is about to have a knee replacement but has the goal of being able to dance at granddaughter’s wedding in 6 months. How does a simple pair of knitted socks help?

Before the op, the surgeon and physio are able to monitor her gait in real situations, shopping, walking to see friends, even driving the car. After the op, that same monitoring can go on invisibly as she recovers. Checking on actual progress, even grandma’s tell fibs about the amount of rehabilitation they have been doing! Noting that progress is good, without another outpatient visit, so the program of dance ready grandma hits a faster pace.

A pair of machine washable socks can do this now – extraordinary in our view.

 A different ordinary – extraordinary.

 AI is having a moment so to speak. AI needs data to feed the models and these ordinary materials can feed almost limitless data for specific outcomes. Your favourite NBA player has an ankle injury and the team needs them. The socks they wear during practice have given the medical team a baseline set of data. Now they can train their AI recovery tool to get the safest and most efficient steps to seeing their superstar back on the court. Better for the team, better for the player, better for the owner.

Like we said.

Ordinary Materials – Extraordinary Powers.

www.footfallsandheartbeats.com/applications