Atome

What: Flexible pads for knees, elbows and wrists, providing protection in medium-impact sports such as skateboarding, basketball, roller-skating, skiing, snowboarding and suchlike. Why: Essential for many sports, protective pads often limit movement. That’s because adequate protection and flexibility are difficult to reconcile. Virgile Tanguy has come up with a solution with Atome, a printed plastic that can be shaped to cover different parts of the body. How: Although the prototype is made of PLA, Atome is ideally made of 3D-printed nylon or carbon fibre. The structure is inspired by chain mail and consists of interconnected triangular modules that not only provide very strong protection but also allow for flexible body movement.