A student from Georgia invents a cap that could save children from football concussions

EKennedy Rogers is not a football player. But she is a stubborn young scientist who is dedicated to one of the biggest problems facing all players, from youth to the NFL. His work, which earned him a coveted place in the final of the BROADCOM Master's National Contest for Science and Engineering, showed that sometimes it takes the perspective of a third party to solve a problem.

Rogers, who goes to school in Douglasville, Georgia, prefers the arts to football. Nevertheless, the young photographer, saxophonist and violinist tells reverse how to watch the news with his mother made him understand the disastrous consequences of concussions for young athletes.

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"I've heard a lot of news about the rise of youth sports and concussions in recent years," she says. "I love working a lot with technology, so when I decided on my science fair project, I wanted to use what I like to do to help people."

Most of us know these stories that inspired Rogers. CTE has truly become a named home in 2017, when 99% of brain samples taken from 111 deceased NFL players have revealed CTE signs. Even more recently, however, we discovered that the CTE was not the only way for a hard blow to the head to make a tragic toll: this fall, linebacker Dylan Thomas, age 16 , died as a result of cardiac arrest after being hurt badly. hit in the middle of a high school game.

These tragedies have led scientists to take up the torch of research on CTE. They focus on young people: Recently, a team from the University of California, Berkeley, published an article in Neurobiology of the disease This shows that a simple football season in high school creates microscopic changes in the gray matter of teenage athletes. While most Grade 8 students would leave this issue to PhD researchers and deep pockets of the NFL, Rogers felt compelled to help in his own way by sewing together a bean-sensing cap. concussions containing a tiny circuit designed for portable items, which she learned to schedule at summer camp.

After sewing for several months in her bedroom, she integrated this chip into a handmade fabric hood, carefully aligning the threads so that the hood is both portable and functional. Crossing the threads would make its design useless, she explains, describing how difficult it was to adapt all this technology to such a small piece of fabric. Its final product is a delicate hood that illuminates and buzzes when it detects a force high enough to sustain a concussion.

His device, although not the first of its kind, earned him the BROADCOM Master's Competition Finalist Award, a science and engineering competition for Grades 6, 7, and 8. Out of 2,500 candidates, Roger's is in the top 300 and ranks among the top 30 projects.

"I did not think I would succeed because there were so many good projects, so I was really surprised," she added.

Rogers is still considering ways to improve the cap. She wants to find a way to send signals from her cap to a mobile device, allowing coaches to monitor their players off the field and know, in real time, exactly How hard the player was hit.

"It's more of a prototype now," says Rogers. "I'm looking for a helmet or make it more usable for other sports. Concussions occur in football or in sports where they do not necessarily need headphones. So I work on making a headband. "

Rogers is a scientist in the soul, but the project she chose has plunged her into the midst of a debate involving researchers, politicians and sports enthusiasts. As part of his project, Rogers had to become familiar with the many arguments that surround youth football. At the heart of the controversy, there is an idea that derives some Americans: must we get rid of football completely?

CTEs and other brain injuries are strong evidence that the rules of the game must, at the very least, be re-evaluated to ensure player safety. It is promising that they are already changing both at the level of youth and youth. In February 2017, the National Federation of State High School Associations eliminated the blocking of the blinds and the "kick-start" to protect the players. Some believe, however, that the time has come to ban youth football altogether.

But there will always be people digging their heels to protect one of America's favorite pastimes. For example, in Orange County, California, The coaches have joined a bill introduced in 2017 to ban grassroots football. They cite changes in coaching rules and awareness that have made the game "safer than ever".

Rogers knows both of these arguments and sees his technology as a way to appease both sides.

"I know that a lot of people think that the game is difficult and that if you can not cope, you should not play. I think this project is win-win for both sides. If you want to change this game, that's fine. But if you do not do it, you will still have this device to help you. "