Balls, Foam & Fortunes, Part 2: For Developing Nations, a New Kind of Soccer Ball from EVA Foam
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Tim Jahnigen is a multicreative, Dean-Kamen-like inventor who has created “systems and technologies with patents pending in a diverse range of industries, from construction and banking to science and medicine.” In recent years he turned his attention towards what initially appeared to be a smaller problem: Redesigning the soccer ball.
During the last World Cup we looked at the soccer ball’s design history, and complained about the pure evil that is the Jabulani. But Jahnigen was interested specifically in soccer balls as they’re used in developing nations. Your average Adidas will last just fine in the back of a minivan or on the well-manicured pitch at Springfield Middle School, but dirt tracks in Darfur and rocky fields in Afghanistan chew the balls up in no time.
So it was that Jahnigen observed a documentary about kids in Darfur kicking around, rather than a ball, a rough sphere of garbage tied up with twine. It was their only option, as balls donated to children in situations like these simply cannot withstand the rough terrain. “The millions of balls that are donated go flat within 24 hours,” Jahnigen told The New York Times.
After doing research he discovered a materials company called PopFoam, whose tagline is “Soft Toughness” and whose titular product is made from EVA (ethyl vinyl acetate). As the company describes it, “PopFoam will improve durability, tear strength, tensile strength, flexibility, color availability, chemical resistance, cold weather resistance, sound protection and abrasion resistance while offering the cushioning comforts and the complement of design ascetics [sic] to your products.”
However, Jahnigen calculated that tooling costs to produce PopFoam in a spherical, soccer-ball-sized shape would cost a small fortune–about $300,000, money that he didn’t have. Here’s where it gets a little crazy: The multi-talented Jahnigen is also a music producer, and counts Sting among his list of buddies. When Sting, no stranger to charitable giving, heard about the project, he insisted on funding it.
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