Velcro

Swiss engineer George de Mestral invented the hook-and-loop fastener in 1941. I think Velcro was an innovative idea because de Mestral saw the possibility of binding two materials in a simple fashion by replicating nature. The idea came to him one day after returning from a hunting trip with his dog in the Alps. He took a closer look at the burrs that kept sticking to his clothes and his dog's fur and tried to duplicate the hook-and-loop, taking him ten years to master. Not only is Velcro used to join children’s shoes together but also it is durable enough when made of Teflon loops, polyester hooks, and glass backing to be used on space shuttles. Leonard Duffy, noting the disadvantages of Velcro, and taking Velcro as his model, created a new product called the “slidingly engaging fastener”. Instead of loops and hooks, it has interlocking islands with undercut edges that slide together. Duffy then created a wraparound cast made from a single plastic sheet sealed with his fasteners to replace similar removable casts with Velcro straps. With the Unity Wrap, Duffy won the grand prize in NASA’s “Create the Future” invention contest. Since then the sliding engaging fastener has become available at Material ConneXion, a global materials consultancy and library of innovative and sustainable materials, and several designers and a prosthetics company have expressed interest.