Inspiration leads to indestructible soccer ball

sfgate ^ | July 18, 2010 | Carolyn Said

[smokingfrog]

Surrounded by barbed wire, amid hovels made of plastic, cardboard and sticks, children were playing an infectious game of soccer - using trash instead of a ball.

Those images of Darfur refugees on CNN "were heartbreaking and inspiring at the same time," said Tim Jahnigen, a Berkeley inventor, musician and music producer. "I saw children desperate to play, living in a world where nothing makes sense and they've been traumatized by irrational violence. In their innocence, they were willing to play with anything."

A narrator explained that the children's harsh environment meant that balls went flat almost instantly.

Jahnigen had a brainstorm: What if he could create a soccer ball that would last a lifetime, never need pumping and would withstand razor wire, sharp rocks and broken glass?

It took nearly five years and the help of the musician Sting for that vision to become a reality. This month, just as World Cup fever was at a pitch, Jahnigen and his wife, Lisa Tarver, introduced the One World Futbol, an all-terrain, extremely durable soccer ball made of closed-cell foam similar to that used in Croc sandals.

The ball's name is inspired by Sting's song, "One World." The couple's goal is to distribute 1 million balls over the next three years to children in places ravaged by war, poverty and natural disasters.

[pnh102]

Awesome indeed.

[pabianice]

That’s the trick. Amid desease, starvation, and violence, let’s give the kids soccer balls! I feel so GOOD about myself!

[calex59]

Probably before your time but before they invented inner tubes bike tires were solid rubber. The new “baloon” tires were an instant success as you can well imagine. I can just remember some bikes still having solid rubber tires but 99% of them had inner tubes.

[TXnMA]

You pre-date me -- slightly. I o remember with great fondness the the red "real" rubber inner tubes that preceded the now-ubiquitous black synthetic tubes.

Strips of those "live rubber" inner tubes made great power bands for what are now euphemistically called, "slingshots". And circular slices made amazingly effective "ammunition" for the wooden "rubber (band) guns" we made for ourselves during toy-scarce WWII.

It required a lot of notch-cutting work with a coping saw, but I even made for myself a record-breaking 22-shot "tommy gun" that fired all 22 bands in sequence when a length of twine beneath them was pulled upward...

We even made a "mudball cannon" by tying an entire red bicycle tube into the fork of a willow tree. Range: over 100 yards with a dried ball of clay...

~~~~~~~~

Nowadays, kids will reject any toy that doesn't have at least a 32-bit microprocessor. Forget making your own fun...

[ASOC]

LOL

You have never been around a bunch of bored Marine PFCs I take it? They make thier own fun.

Like MRE bombs

[calex59]

Strips of those "live rubber" inner tubes made great power bands for what are now euphemistically called, "slingshots". And circular slices made amazingly effective "ammunition" for the wooden "rubber (band) guns" we made for ourselves during toy-scarce WWII.

Yep, we used to fight over the Red tubes. I made many slingshots back in the day and rubber band guns also, but never made an automatic:).

[smokingfrog]

Surviving a lion...

One ball went to a different customer: a lion at the Johannesburg zoo. “He played with it like a kitten to the point of exhaustion,” Jahnigen said. “The zoo director said they give him balls for stimulation but they usually just last a minute. This one has tooth marks and punctures all through it, but it still works.”

---

Does that sound like a Nerf Ball to you?

[smokingfrog]

!

[smokingfrog]

Maybe we could sponsor some with Bible verses on them.

[TXnMA]

ROFLMBO!!!! “Fun” is alive and well! Hoorah!

[Jack Hydrazine]

Which adults? The Muslims or the infidels?

[Jack Hydrazine]

That would give the Muslims more excuse to murder and destroy the infidels there.

[SoothingDave]

But will anyone invent soccer that isn’t nil-nil boredom?

[tubebender]

Y’all must really be old as I am only 77 and don’t remember red inner tubes and all my sling shot bands were cut from 600 X 16 car tubes. Today I have 2 wrist rockets that I shoot marbles at what ever annoys me...

[calex59]

I’m younger than you, I am 68, but in LA, when I was a kid, there were quite a few Red automobile inner tubes still about, thus the reason we fought over them:)

[TXnMA]

Times change -- and so do our "toys". I decided to "play with" Canvas^R and see how quickly I could draw that ca 1944 "Inner Tube-band 'Tommy' Gun" from memory:

There was a piece of strong twine attached to a nail in the center of the "muzzle" notch, then laid back atop the gun in the groove until it extended out through the "rear sight".

Then, starting from the muzzle end, "rubbers" were stretched from the muzzle notch back to the top notches, each one trapping the twine beneath it.

When you had the 22nd "rubber" stretched back to the notch in front of the rear sight, you were "ready to go to war"...

Then, simply by pulling upward on the loose end of the twine at the back, you could loose single shots or "hose 'em good"! Of course the bands at the front had considerably lower "muzzle velocity"...

But, for a while, there, I was the envy of the whole neighborhood -- after the "coping-saw blisters" healed, that is... '-}

[stuartcr]

The adults where these kids live.

[TXnMA]

For a light-hearted break, take a peek at my septuagenerian's nostalgic look back at one of the toys I made for myself during WWII -- when "store-bought" toys were hard to come by... (If you read back up-thread, you'll learn that the "ammunition" was rings cut from old, multi-patched inner tubes.)

If you know of someone else who might enjoy it -- please share!

BTW & FWIW, I'm convinced such "make it yourself" exercises stimulated a good mindset for many of my later patents...

[TXnMA]

FWIW, most of my inner tube "stock" came from our Model "A" Ford's tires -- plus what I could wheedle from the guys at the local "service station"... (Remember real service?)

[Jack Hydrazine]

So the children have been traumatized by irrational violence at the hands of the adults within their own community?