Imagine you could pack your backpack to bursting for a hike and not worry about the weight pulling at your shoulders as you navigate tricky rocks. Or that you could carry all of your books in your backpack without it jostling up and down as you take the stairs.
Through his company Lightning Packs LLC, MBL Whitman Center investigator Lawrence Rome hopes to ease the aching shoulders and knees of active people everywhere. The company, previously funded by Kickstarter and now on Indiegogo, sells HoverGlide backpacks in which the load, attached to one frame, is suspended via a heavy-duty elastic coupling from a second frame attached to the wearer. This system allows the packs to seemingly defy gravity by reducing accelerative forces by more than 80 percent as wearers run and even jump while hauling gear.