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Feb 04 2008

What Happened to Flexible Body Armour?

Posted by: User ImageAdrian Corscadden in Cool, Science, Technology

Besides giving Hockey Canada a wake-up call, the Turino Olympics was also the public debut for a promising technology. The substance, d3o, is similar to silly puddy at rest, but instantly hardens on impact, thus creating flexible body armour. This material was incorporated into the ski suits of Canadian and American racers. It is created by the British based d3o labs.

There was a lot of hype about this product during the last Olympics, but news has died down. The wikipedia entry is lacking and is still considered a stub. I am guessing that this is because the product is still under heavy development and d3o labs does not want to release details until all of their patents are secured.

The best application of d3o that I can think of is a flexible laptop sleeve that hardens on impact (patent pending). It would be awesome!

d30 labs, where is my d3o laptop sleeve?????

Here is a video demonstrating the awesomeness of d30:

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This entry was posted on Monday, February 4th, 2008 at 12:18 pm and is filed under Cool, Science, Technology.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

6 Responses to “What Happened to Flexible Body Armour?”
  1. no imageTS (Who am I?) says:
    February 4th, 2008 at 6:48 pm

    That would make for some awesome soccer shin guards, don’t know if I’d want it to protect my head though. I really want to figure out how this stuff works, some crazy chemical engineering went into that.

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  2. no imageAdrian Corscadden (Who am I?) says:
    February 4th, 2008 at 7:15 pm

    Yea, that stuff is pretty crazy.

    I didn’t mention shin pads, but they do exist. They’ll set you back 50 pounds:

    http://www.prodirectsoccer.com/prodinfo.asp?DEPT=8&DEPTTYPE=Shinpads&BRAND=25&SS=1

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  3. no imagefragileheart (Who am I?) says:
    February 9th, 2008 at 8:35 pm

    Now that would’ve been much more entertaining if he had missed the bit that had the d30 bit on his right knee ;P

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  4. no imageRob (Who am I?) says:
    February 11th, 2008 at 5:30 am

    I found the video fascinating. If the video was real and not tricked up, I can see many opportunities to help protect those whose recreations or occupation puts then at risk. I once saw John McEnroe play a match, and I’m certain the umpire would have been grateful for some.

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  5. no imageAdrian Corscadden (Who am I?) says:
    February 11th, 2008 at 4:00 pm

    d3o is very real and is definitely not a hoax. It is just some very impressive chemical engineering.

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  6. Seriously, where is my d3o laptop sleeve? says:
    March 16th, 2008 at 11:24 pm

    [...] have previously blogged about a really neat substance d3o. It is flexible at rest, but hardens instantaneously on impact. [...]

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