Greg's Corner

Paper bike helmet: way of the future?

A woman by the name of Isis Shiffer just won the James Dyson Award for her invention of a paper bike helmet called the EcoHelmet. Ms. Shiffer came up with the idea for the helmet after visiting cities that have bike share programs but she didn’t want to keep buying a helmet at each city. She also noted that helmets are bulky and inconvenient to carry around. The collapsible form factor of the helmet make it more portable and more convenient to carry around.

This isn’t just a paper hat, when the EcoHelmet unfolds, its honeycomb design helps protects the users’ heads from impact. However, they’re not designed to be a permanent helmet though. Wear and tear and weather conditions will cause the helmet to need to be replaced. Ms Shiffer manufactured the helmet relatively cheaply with recycled materials so the price shouldn’t take too much of a bite out of bikers’ wallets.

A lot of cyclists don’t even wear helmets due to them being so cumbersome when not wearing them. Ms. Shiffer herself admits that getting people to use a disposable helmet made out of paper, but hopefully the convenience of it will cause more people to protect their heads.