After the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011, many elementary schools began considering the use of emergency helmets. But standard safety helmets, bulky and hard to store, might not be close at hand when disaster strikes. That's the challenge: To design the toughest hat, one that can be folded into a compact size but absorbs impact as well as a helmet. Taking up this challenge are a team of researchers from a chemical company that makes shock-absorbent materials, and a team of specialists in the emerging field of "origami technology". Will they bring about a revolution in safety?
