BLEACHER BUBBLES
Keep yourself warm with the power of 10,000 bubbles!
ORIGIN STORY: I was sitting in the stands, seeing snowflakes drift down as I was freezing my butt off at a high school football game where I was watching my daughter in the marching band. The rest of the fans looked equally cold. For some reason, I ended up thinking back to my high school physics class. This is literally what went through my head. "There is no cold, only the absence of heat ... My heat is leaving me and heating the aluminum bleachers, along with everyone else ... We just need some insulation between us and the cold metal ... Air makes good insulation ... I wonder if bubble wrap would work?" Turns out it works great, and that's how it happened.
MY FIRST IDEA WAS TO SELL THEM...
Bleacher Bubbles make a great fundraiser for hockey teams, figure skaters, football teams, marching band fans, and anyone else who's fans have to sit on cold metal bleachers. My folding directions make them easy to assemble, and a color copy of a team's logo fits perfectly protected inside and shows through the clear bubbles. I've sold hundreds for $5 to $10, and since they can't be patented, you could make and sell them too.
The sales pitch is dead-simple. Simply find a seated person who looks cold, and encourage them to try one. Tell them all they have to do is sit on it and count to 4. Count along with them, and watch their face change as they try to figure out what just happened. 1, 2, 3, warm! I've seen the amazed face over and over, and it never gets old.
Contact heat loss is much faster and more brutal than heat loss radiating out of your body into the air. Imagine standing in the cold versus laying on the cement in the cold, and the difference is obvious. Wrapping a blanket around yourself while you sit on a cold metal bleacher is a losing battle.
The secret is 10,000 air-filled bubbles of closed-cell insulation. In just a few seconds, your body warms up the air in the top several layers of bubbles, and then that heated air can't move. It stays warm as long as you sit on it. An open-cell foam seat or blanket allows the air to squeeze out when you sit on it, and it also refills with cold air every time you move.
Bleacher Bubbles. Protect your endzone.
The sales pitch is dead-simple. Simply find a seated person who looks cold, and encourage them to try one. Tell them all they have to do is sit on it and count to 4. Count along with them, and watch their face change as they try to figure out what just happened. 1, 2, 3, warm! I've seen the amazed face over and over, and it never gets old.
Contact heat loss is much faster and more brutal than heat loss radiating out of your body into the air. Imagine standing in the cold versus laying on the cement in the cold, and the difference is obvious. Wrapping a blanket around yourself while you sit on a cold metal bleacher is a losing battle.
The secret is 10,000 air-filled bubbles of closed-cell insulation. In just a few seconds, your body warms up the air in the top several layers of bubbles, and then that heated air can't move. It stays warm as long as you sit on it. An open-cell foam seat or blanket allows the air to squeeze out when you sit on it, and it also refills with cold air every time you move.
Bleacher Bubbles. Protect your endzone.
KEEPING FOOD WARM?
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Several layers of bubblewrap works exceptionally well to keep take-out food warm when it's winter and your seats are cold.
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THEN CAME THE HUMANITARIAN OPPORTUNITY...
ORIGIN STORY, PART 2: I was in my car listening to a story on efforts to help the homeless, and I started to think about Bleacher Bubbles. I had tested them in the dead of winter on my concrete front porch, and they had still worked well. I realized there was a much, MUCH bigger and more important use for what I had discovered. In my testing involving bags of ice, jugs of water, and a digital thermometer, the layers of bubblewrap beat blankets and other insulated seats. It was fairly cheap, waterproof, bug proof, cushioning, and often just discarded as trash. I only found one other situation where bubble wrap was used to insulate humans, and that was to transport premature babies between hospitals. It's not great for preventing radiant heat loss, but for contact heat loss it seems to perform remarkably well.
Here's my submission to a 2008 Google contest, Project 10 to the 100. I didn't win, but I think the idea still needs to be shared with the world. Lives could be improved, or even saved!
If you could suggest a unique idea that would help as many people as possible, what would it be?
Title of idea (max 50 characters):
bubblewrap bedroll: warm, dry, soft, clean, cheap
# 1. What one sentence best describes your idea? (maximum 150 characters)
A dozen layers of cheap bubblewrap will dramatically reduce losing body heat into cold hard ground, and enable sitting and sleeping in reasonable cushioned comfort.
# 2. Describe your idea in more depth. (maximum 300 words)
For people with inadequate shelter, staying warm and getting sleep can be major struggles leading to many other health and wellness issues. Staying warm is important for a strong immune system, and it requires less energy (i.e. food). Getting good sleep is critical for energy, healing, immune function, concentration, memory, creativity, mood. Sitting or sleeping directly on the ground is cold, hard, and difficult. Heat loss is dramatically faster through contact with a cold surface than with cold air. Bubble insulation with 3/8” pockets of air has an amazing combination of properties that makes it better than any other material I’ve tested. The small closed cells insulate very well against contact with a cold surface, actually create a warming sensation, will not smush flat like open-cell foam, can easily handle body weight, are waterproof, bug-proof, easy to clean, cheap, and disposable. A dozen folded layers is a good balance between cost and function. My idea is both to distribute the knowledge that it works, and find a way to connect bubbles with people that need them. This could be accomplished through either newly manufactured wrap, or the collection and redistribution of used bubble wrap to shelters, disaster teams, and humanitarian organizations serving climates where exposure is a problem.
# 3. What problem or issue does your idea address? (maximum 150 words)
One of the primary purposes of shelter is to keep the body warm and dry. There are many products to keep yourself warm, but few are both inexpensive and also effectively address conductive heat loss. Without the right insulation, the body heat is drawn into whatever cold object it is touching. When sitting or laying on the cold ground, you are literally heating the earth. Donated blankets and jackets only address radiant and convective heat loss, which happen at much slower rates. For anyone on the ground, bubble wrap can literally be a life-saver.
# 4. If your idea were to become a reality, who would benefit the most and how? (maximum 150 words)
I have seen pictures of people in all parts of the world with blankets, blowup mattresses or even plastic tarps huddling curled against the cold while sitting or laying on the ground. The simple, cheap, very effective addition of a few layers of 3/8” bubble wrap between them and the ground would make a huge difference in heat retention and comfort, if only they knew about it and had it available. This would help with two issues: short term emergency situations, and longer term chronic health issues resulting from those with inadequate shelter being cold and not being able to get adequate sleep.
# 5. What are the initial steps required to get this idea off the ground? (maximum 150 words)
First, distribute the information and convince people that this material actually works. A simple one minute test on cold cement, ice, or metal bleachers easily confirms it. A cost comparison of making vs. collecting should be done. Next, raise interest and awareness by contacting the organizations who might act as distribution networks. Examples would be recycle centers, the Red Cross, homeless organizations, world relief funds.
# 6. Describe the optimal outcome should your idea be selected and successfully implemented. How would you measure it? (maximum 150 words)
Emergency blankets would come with folded bubble wrap cushions. Homeless would collect bubble wrap donations at shelters. The public wouldn’t throw away any bubble wrap, but instead take it to their local recycling center for redistribution. Impoverished people sleeping on dirt floors would be given a cheap alternative. Bubble wrap would become a standard emergency and humanitarian item for reducing contact heat loss.
Bleacher Bubbles
1, 2, 3, warm :-)
If you could suggest a unique idea that would help as many people as possible, what would it be?
Title of idea (max 50 characters):
bubblewrap bedroll: warm, dry, soft, clean, cheap
# 1. What one sentence best describes your idea? (maximum 150 characters)
A dozen layers of cheap bubblewrap will dramatically reduce losing body heat into cold hard ground, and enable sitting and sleeping in reasonable cushioned comfort.
# 2. Describe your idea in more depth. (maximum 300 words)
For people with inadequate shelter, staying warm and getting sleep can be major struggles leading to many other health and wellness issues. Staying warm is important for a strong immune system, and it requires less energy (i.e. food). Getting good sleep is critical for energy, healing, immune function, concentration, memory, creativity, mood. Sitting or sleeping directly on the ground is cold, hard, and difficult. Heat loss is dramatically faster through contact with a cold surface than with cold air. Bubble insulation with 3/8” pockets of air has an amazing combination of properties that makes it better than any other material I’ve tested. The small closed cells insulate very well against contact with a cold surface, actually create a warming sensation, will not smush flat like open-cell foam, can easily handle body weight, are waterproof, bug-proof, easy to clean, cheap, and disposable. A dozen folded layers is a good balance between cost and function. My idea is both to distribute the knowledge that it works, and find a way to connect bubbles with people that need them. This could be accomplished through either newly manufactured wrap, or the collection and redistribution of used bubble wrap to shelters, disaster teams, and humanitarian organizations serving climates where exposure is a problem.
# 3. What problem or issue does your idea address? (maximum 150 words)
One of the primary purposes of shelter is to keep the body warm and dry. There are many products to keep yourself warm, but few are both inexpensive and also effectively address conductive heat loss. Without the right insulation, the body heat is drawn into whatever cold object it is touching. When sitting or laying on the cold ground, you are literally heating the earth. Donated blankets and jackets only address radiant and convective heat loss, which happen at much slower rates. For anyone on the ground, bubble wrap can literally be a life-saver.
# 4. If your idea were to become a reality, who would benefit the most and how? (maximum 150 words)
I have seen pictures of people in all parts of the world with blankets, blowup mattresses or even plastic tarps huddling curled against the cold while sitting or laying on the ground. The simple, cheap, very effective addition of a few layers of 3/8” bubble wrap between them and the ground would make a huge difference in heat retention and comfort, if only they knew about it and had it available. This would help with two issues: short term emergency situations, and longer term chronic health issues resulting from those with inadequate shelter being cold and not being able to get adequate sleep.
# 5. What are the initial steps required to get this idea off the ground? (maximum 150 words)
First, distribute the information and convince people that this material actually works. A simple one minute test on cold cement, ice, or metal bleachers easily confirms it. A cost comparison of making vs. collecting should be done. Next, raise interest and awareness by contacting the organizations who might act as distribution networks. Examples would be recycle centers, the Red Cross, homeless organizations, world relief funds.
# 6. Describe the optimal outcome should your idea be selected and successfully implemented. How would you measure it? (maximum 150 words)
Emergency blankets would come with folded bubble wrap cushions. Homeless would collect bubble wrap donations at shelters. The public wouldn’t throw away any bubble wrap, but instead take it to their local recycling center for redistribution. Impoverished people sleeping on dirt floors would be given a cheap alternative. Bubble wrap would become a standard emergency and humanitarian item for reducing contact heat loss.
Bleacher Bubbles
1, 2, 3, warm :-)