While a lot of industrial design projects start from client briefs of the "Design us a sexier coffeemaker" variety, there are also those projects that start from the discovery of a new material. Inventor Andy Morrison had been dreaming of a rescue winch for years, but the materials he'd need to build what he'd envisioned simply didn't exist. Then, in 2008, he discovered a type of rope that was as strong as steel cable, but only 1/10th of the weight. Around the same time Morrison watched news reports of China's devastating Sichuan earthquake, which reduced 600,000 structures to rubble almost instantaneously.
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