The founders of Spring Loaded Technology just can’t wait for the day when some sports authority bans their product.

The three Dalhousie University students – Chris Cowper-Smith, Bob Garrish and Shea Kewin – are developing a new type of knee brace, which not only stabilizes the joint but also strengthens it, allowing the user to receive more power from his or her quadriceps. The product, which they hope to license to an established device manufacturer, would grant greater mobility to people who have difficulty moving because of age, disability or obesity.

But it could also improve performance of athletes in several sports, because they would have greater leg strength than their competitors. And the trio gets giddy at the thought of it being banned in certain sports.

“The possibility of it getting banned in some sports we’re actually really excited about,” said Cowper-Smith, a research scientist completing his PhD in Psychology and Neuroscience at Dalhousie.

“That makes one market angry and another market very happy,” added Garrish, a PhD candidate in Mechanical Engineering.

The Spring Loaded product looks like any other knee brace, but it has one unique feature. When the user contracts the knee by crouching, it stores the energy produced by the movement. Then when he straightens the knee again, the device adds to the power of the motion.

The three founders believe the device will have applications in high impact sports, such as skydiving, motocross or skateboarding, and other dynamic sports like hockey and squash. If any of these sports banned the product at the highest level, they believe, it would show that the device works and excite people in other markets.

The product was the brainchild of Kewin, who is finishing his Business Management degree with a major in Entrepreneurship and Innovation and was an academic all-Canadian as a captain of the varsity hockey team. Last year he injured his knee and had to wear a brace, and he began to wonder why it did nothing to strengthen the joint.

Kewin brought the idea for a bionic knee brace to the Starting Lean course at Dalhousie, where he teamed up with Cowper-Smith and Garrish, and they began to work on the product. They are now working on a basic product that they hope could be sold to the military to help paratroopers absorb the shock of landing. They then plan to continue developing the product into a sports device, and then an aid for people with movement problems.

Comfort and size will be key considerations for the market for people with restricted movement, said Cowper-Smith, so the team will have to perfect the design before entering that market. These people would have to wear the brace for eight to 10 hours at a time, and would want something that would not be visible beneath their clothes.

Aside from the commercial potential of the product, Cowper-Smith said he dreams of a day when the team can help people who have difficulty with simple tasks like standing and walking. “I’ve always had a passion for helping people with movement disabilities and for making life better for people,” he said.

Though a lot of the research on the product can be achieved fairly cheaply at the university, the Spring Loaded team believes it will need about $100,000 to develop its prototype, and then about $600,000 to $1 million for further product development.