Anyone else have a love-hate relationship with Velcro? Sure, it’s great to hold stuff together. But, it’s noisy to pull apart, it pulls at your clothes, and it falls apart easily. That’s why Leonard Duffy, a 66 year old architect, decided to reinvent the original.
He describes his new version of Velcro as a “sliding engaging fastener” that he says is made up of “islands with undercut edges that self-align then slide into interlocked positions, resisting shear and uplift.” Sounds complicated, but basically it’s just a newer version of Velcro’s “hook and loop” connectors. This invention is 8 times as strong as the original Velcro and much more durable.
It took Duffy 8 years and $40,000 to develop his new version of Velcro, and it’s currently being used by prosthetic companies in the development of new, waterproof casts.