Student wins $50,000 grant to create new life jackets

A student at St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, Nova Scotia, has received a $50,000 grant to help turn his idea into reality. He wants to create a new type of life jacket specifically designed for commercial fishing.

Ben Collings-MacKay, 21, from Prince Edward Island, spent most of his summers fishing for lobster in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

The young man is also the founder of CM Marine Safety Equipmentwho received an award from the organization Spark Nova Scotia with the aim of Driving early-stage innovation in rural Nova Scotia.

He remembers, during his first season of lobster fishing, witnessing a fisherman being pushed into the water by a trap.

That made me wonder: why wasn’t he wearing a life jacket? This could have ended differently that day..

The life jackets on the boat he was working on were bulky, bulky and they got caught on things and got in the waydid he declare. Most of the time we didn’t wear them.

Integrate the flotation system into the equipment

To address this and make fishermen safer, he came up with a simple idea. Rather than having an external device to add on top of the gear, he wants to integrate his life jacket into the overalls worn by fishermen.

He also hopes to make his equipment more flexible and comfortable.

The prototype he presented at the competition was made with the help of his sister and her sewing machine.

I kept running into the same problem: people couldn’t really visualize what I was talking about, and I’m not the best drawer, so I couldn’t really sketch for them.did he declare.

He believes his prototype probably helped him win the scholarship.

To bring his prototype to life, he wants to work with engineers who he would like to start testing in real conditions in 2025.

The ultimate goal is to save lives… They will be built for fishermen, designed by fishermen. That’s the whole idea.

According to a report by Carolyn Ryan, CBC