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The project team has begun turning their prototype into the final product. Their ability to ship the products may be affected by product development or financial challenges.
To buy a Morpher flat folding helmet, go to www.morpherhelmet.com
We are now in full production - Invest in Morpher: Go to www.seedrs.com/morpher
An open and shut case for the future of helmets
People are cycling more than ever. In Europe and the USA more bicycles are now being sold than cars! And more and more cities around the world are introducing cycle rental schemes.
It’s inevitable that as more people take to the road on a bicycle, more people will have accidents. When head meets road, vehicle or pavement without a helmet on it’s generally pretty messy… and sometimes fatal!
When it's not fatal the injuries caused by brain damage can often be too awful to contemplate. Victims of brain injuries often spend years in a coma unable to communicate in any way or they lose the ability to live normal lives and can need constant care. More often than not, head injuries affect not just the victim but whole families.
My campaign is to develop and manufacture Morpher, a new kind of helmet that folds flat so that it's easy to carry around when one isn't actually on a bicycle.
STOP PRESS: The Evening Standard, London's evening newspaper, reported on Thursday that after a cycling accident in Spitalfields on Monday night, 27-year-old Claire Pepper's head became trapped under a VW Golf. “If I had not been wearing my helmet I would have died,” she said. And, with five cycling deaths on London’s roads in the past nine days, many of us want all the protection we can get.
Popular Science Magazine's Safety Invention of the year
Morpher literally folds in half when not in use. It will slide away into a bag with little more fuss than a laptop.
With Morpher, cyclists will find it easier to always have a helmet at hand.
More helmets = fewer head injuries and fatalities.
Help Morpher happen sooner - pick a perk now
Some people have asked me why we have quoted our perks in US$ and not UK£. The answer is that I had to pick one or other currency and as most funds are likely to come from the good old US of A I thought that Dollars would be more appropriate. Currently £1.00 is worth around $1.29. Which means that a rough value of our perks is as follows:
$100= £77.47 $150 = £116.20 $300 = £232.41
Don't forget to add your postage!
Morpher is the world’s first fold-flat helmet. Morpher folds & unfolds quickly and simply, so it's perfect for cyclists who want to carry a helmet more easily. Patented worldwide, Morpher has been designed to exceed all relevant safety standards. Morpher is initially aimed at all cyclists; especially those urban ones who find normal helmets cumbersome to carry around all day. Eventually it will also be marketed to other users of sports safety helmets (skiers, skaters, snow boarders, hockey players, horse riders etc).
Morpher's flat profile will also allow innovative selling methods, such as vending machines placed by major bicycle hire points. Morpher aims to give the world an unprecedented ease of access to cycle safety. At Morpher we also believe in a greener planet, so we've ensured that our helmets and their components are made from recyclable materials.
Check out the image gallery for more images of Morpher
People love Morpher. Even as a prototype, it's already won three major international innovation awards.
I'm Jeff, an inventor from the UK. I'm also a keen urban cyclist. I’ve been working hard to develop this product for the past 2 years.
I have been involved with successful innovation and new product development for many years and have worked with hundreds of inventors over the past 20 years helping them to get their ideas made and their products to market.
I am utilising everything I've learned as well as the skills of the team that I’ve built around me to ensure that this product is an incredible improvement over existing technologies.
I am chairman of the Judging panel for the World Innovation Awards that are held annually in London and I really believe that with my experience I have what it takes to make this product work. Well.
After I came up with the idea for Morpher I knew that I needed to get some top quality Industrial Design done, so I contacted some of the world's leading industrial design companies to ask them to tender for the project. After careful consideration, I chose Therefore Limited, as, rather unsurprisingly, they came up with by far the best solutions.
Therefore work with great companies like Braun, Asus, Samsonite, Tom Tom, etc.,and were the design house responsible for the groundbreaking Psion Series 5 PDA range.Therefore were also responsible for the design and development of the GravityLight, which raised $399,590.00 on Indiegogo in a campaign that was oversubscribed 727%. They are World Class designers and their work on Morpher has been incredible.
I have been involved with manufacturers and injection moulders for many years and after visiting and getting manufacturing quotations from dozens of helmet manufacturers I have carefully selected Strategic Sports Ltd to manufacture Morpher.
They are the world’s leading OEM helmet manufacturer who are determined to make this a fantastically safe and effective product. They make helmets for most of the world’s leading brands.
If you own a cycle helmet, the chances are that it’s one of theirs.
They are an amazing company that treat their staff incredibly well. They provide homes, schooling, English lessons, food, sporting facilities, loads of international travel opportunities and a host of other benefits to those that are lucky enough to work there.
There is a video explaining who they are and what they do at the bottom of this page.
Some years back, I was involved in an accident. I was hit by a car and thrown off my bike at pretty high speed. I flew through the air (stylishly) and landed head first on a kerb stone (a bit less stylishly). I broke my shoulder, smashed my chin, broke a couple of ribs... and if it wasn't for my helmet I would almost certainly have died... or been seriously brain damaged.
As planet Earth gets greener and fitter we’re cycling more and more. More than a hundred cities around the world now have cycle rental schemes, which are proving to be hugely popular. But very few of us non bike owners are wearing helmets. According to research, the main reason is that they are simply too cumbersome to carry around all day, especially if you may only be taking a ten minute bike ride.
I noticed that on bike rental schemes, such as the ones in San Francisco, Boston, London, Paris, Taipei, Shanghai, Bangkok and other cities, huge numbers of cyclists don't wear helmets. In London, for instance, well over 90% of renters don't wear one.
I wanted to know why, so I commissioned a survey*. These were the results that we obtained:
So I realised I had a mission. If I could create a helmet that could fold flat… I could save lives, and so my journey began...
It’s inevitable that as more people take to the road on a bicycle, more people will have accidents. When head meets road, vehicle or pavement without a helmet on it’s generally pretty messy… and sometimes fatal! My campaign is about encouraging helmet use by making them simpler to carry around when one isn’t actually on a bicycle.
Help us protect the world, help get Morpher through the last stages of production.
Morpher has come a long way since its inception. The design has grown and changed radically, ideas have come and gone and now we're almost there. There are just a few more stages to complete before Morpher is ready to meet the world.
Moulding this helmet is extremely difficult as there are least 6 different materials and components involved. And they all have to be combined into one final moulding and assembly operation, which is incredibly challenging and has never been done before!
(For those of you that want some more detail of how this all happens, see below or feel free to send me an email.)
The funds are going towards passing rigorous international safety standards testing as well as finalising and building the incredibly complex tooling that is needed to produce Morpher.
This means ensuring that the helmets get through the hugely onerous and thorough testing criteria to ensure that they pass all relevant safety standards. First for Europe and then for the USA and Australia (Our prototypes have already passed most European testing standards and we are on course to pass the more stringent US and Australian testing requirements).
THE MONEY
The funding will be used to cover the high costs of obtaining the certification and to get the manufacturing process working in an efficient and streamlined way, ready for mass production.
FAQs
1. Shipping Costs: If you forgot to add shipping to your order then please Click Here, select "No perk, I just want to contribute", change the amount from the default $100 to the correct amount ($10 US, $15 UK or $20 Rest of World) & it will be matched to your order
2. Shipping Addresses: Before we ship anything we’ll be emailing & asking you to confirm your address, so please don’t worry if you've moved since you ordered
3. Colours: The first Morphers that we ship don’t have a colour choice. We’ve already polled you on some choices & I think they’ll be stunning. More about this as we get closer to May… It's looking likely that they'll be black (as shown under the "What" section, above) but this isn't yet guaranteed
4. Size: Our first model has a fit system. This means you can adjust your Morpher to fit heads with a circumference of between 50.5 & 58cm. (19.8 to 22.7 inches. 6 1/8 to 7 1/8 UK hat sizes.) This covers a pretty wide range of heads from mid-teens to small ladies to medium+ men. Obviously, in the future, we'll produce a range of sizes including larger helmets & children's helmets.
PRESS
We've had recent press in all of these publications, programmes and websites.
If you can't help financially, don't fret! You can still help us by spreading the word! Share, Tweet, Like and talk about Morpher with all your friends. Share the IndieGoGo link with everyone and help us build momentum.
Our Twitter account is @morpherhelmet
This is one of the greatest ways you can help us if you've donated or not. We urge everyone who believes in Morpher to do this!
CONTACT
If you wish to get in contact please access our website and drop us an email.
Here is a video on Strategic Sports Ltd, our manufacturing partner. You could come and visit this factory with me if you purchase our top perk. It's an incredible place to see.
We are all sold out for now on Indiegogo.
Get your Morpher with free Express delivery worldwide on
www.morpherhelmet.com
Or invest in the company itself on
www.seedrs.com/morpher
