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BYU engineering professors have created an origami-inspired, lightweight bulletproof shield that can protect law enforcement from gunfire.
The new barrier can be folded compactly when not in use, making it easier to transport and deploy. When expanded—which takes only five seconds—it can provide cover for officers and stop bullets from several types of handguns.
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In working with law enforcement, BYU researchers learned much of what is currently used hasn't evolved much from medieval times: shields that are mostly flat, awkward plates that cover only one person. Current barriers are so heavy and cumbersome they make it difficult for officers to move into position.The barrier Howell and his colleagues designed is made of 12 layers of bulletproof Kevlar and weighs only 55 pounds (many of the steel-based barriers in current use approach 100 pounds). The BYU-built barrier uses a Yoshimura origami crease pattern to expand around an officer, providing protection on the side in addition to protecting them in the front.
Aren't police using exploding robots in that kind of situation now?
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 18 2017, @06:55AM
Can we have more gun discussions on SoylentNews? Seems to really up the click rate, or the FPS, as we ammosexuals call it! I love discussing my caliber, and my kinetic yield, Feet Per Second (would have to be, since, AMeriKa!). And penetration! I love talking about penetration, especially penetration of bad guys bodies, because I really want to . . . OK, let's just leave that aside, for the moment. My contention is that a American Civil War Minie ball, with an adequate powder charge, is enough to penetrate any SjW that you can put on the line, and all the more so since they want it! Or do I have this reversed? Do Right-Wing Nut-Jobs just want to be homosexually raped by Civil War era weaponry? I mean, they still had "ramrods" back then. But imagine, a .68 caliber conical round, propelled by at least 70 grains of double F blackpowder, set off by a fulminate of mercury cap! Oh, to die for! Literally! So, what is Milo strutting around as such an available target for, anyway?
Ammosexual, homosexual, all the same, except ammosexuals are all rapey, with lead, rapey! Inserting objects into other men's bodies (and it is always men!) against their will. Homosexual rape. Republicans. Gannon?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 18 2017, @09:27AM
Same AC here, my mistake. Of course, in any rifle or musket of less than .70 caliber, one should use triple F powder fro the main charge, whether in a percussion or a flint/wheel/match-lock weapon. I truly regret the error. (But in my defense, with a longer barrel and more complete combustion rates, sometimes the courser blackpowder does produce higher velocities for a given projectile weight, thereby producing more force at a given range. Those little paper cranes on you chest do not stand a chance! You coward! Why are you afraid of guns! Here, let me show you! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTGmTrQXrwg [youtube.com] Of course, there is the apology: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEuBXWujeYQ [youtube.com] He respects the gun now, because the gun is smarter than he is, and he is a graduate of the James (Coward) Yeager (Mercenary) school of "I just fucking shot myself." My god, nothing is so stupid as a stupid with a gun.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Saturday February 18 2017, @12:47PM
Geekitude comes in all flavors. Some like software, some like machines, some like anime, some like weapons. This story was about a shield, so, a defensive weapon, not a gun. And it's one of less of fewer than a half dozen such stories in the last six months. It's hardly a staple.
Washington DC delenda est.