West Coast Now
Two eighth graders are Vancouver Island’s newest and possibly youngest inventors.
Liam Pope-Lau and Fraser Tuck devised a self-heating life jacket for a science fair project and the invention has taken off. The two attend St. Michaels University School in Greater Victoria.
Since submitting to local science fairs, they have received a $5000 award from the B.C. Science Fair Foundation and are already in the works to patent the product.
The self-heating pouch is filled with calcium chloride, the same type of salt that many of us are putting out across our sidewalks right now in the snowy weather.
The pouch’s heat lasts thirty to forty minutes and could be life-saving to stave off hypothermia. The pair think it could be helpful for coast guards, search and rescue teams, ferries and cruise ships.
Liam Pope-Lau shows off the jacket’s effectiveness in this video interview with CTV. The preteen donned the warming life-jacket while the poor news anchor tested out the non-warming jacket to compare the two in the chilly ocean water of Oak Bay.
“I just want to see it actually save a life,” says Fraser Tuck.
Somebody get these teens on Dragon’s Den!
