Danielle Yang, 19, a first-year student at Caltech in Pasadena, can list all the times wearing hearing aids and playing sports were not compatible.
They would stop working when she got whacked in the head with a lacrosse stick. Or when sweat, raindrops or wind would interfere with the sensitive devices in her ears as she played team sports, or jumped hurdles and ran sprint races as a multi-sport high school athlete in Indiana.
So she did something about it.
She and a six of her Bloomington South High School classmates invented the Storm Shield, a headband device that protects hearing aids from damaging impacts, moisture and inclement weather, securing them in place. As a hearing-impaired athlete, Yang learned from experience it was important to hear the coach’s play calling from the sidelines, or recognize the sound of footsteps from an approaching defender.
Last summer, as the leader of the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) team, she pitched the device at a Washington D.C. competition, ending up winning Samsung Electronics’ Solve For Tomorrow’s regional award. The electronic and computing company along with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) then chose Yang and her Storm Shield team as one of 10 global teams for presentation during the winter games.
“When we found out we had won, it was a rewarding experience,” she said on Thursday, Feb. 19, about first learning her high school project won a major award, earning her school a $125,000 grant. “It was so shocking it felt like a dream.”
Yang was flown to Milan, Italy where she presented the Storm Shield at the Milano Cortina Winter Olympic Games on Feb. 8, 9, and 10 at the Smart City Lab. She went not as an Olympic athlete, but as an elite thinker, meeting VIPs and touring the Olympic Village. She was one of only two young innovators from across the globe to share personal stories and real-world impacts of their projects.
“Being given a platform by Samsung, and creating this technology, I was then able to share my story to empower others,” she said.
Yang was born with permanent hearing loss. Hearing aids amplify sounds, but she said she will never hear the world like everyone else. “They are not a perfect solution although they’ve gotten better,” she said, remembering how at age 7, she would have to slip in batteries to keep them working. Or when they’d brush against her hair she would hear static.
Today, they are connected to her phone by bluetooth and have improved in quality. And years of speech therapy and learning how to read lips also helped her, she said. But as an athlete, there weren’t many fixes.
While on the lacrosse field, she tried tying them to her jersey with string to stop them from falling out. But that was against the rules and unsafe. She then tried going without them, but that was admittedly dangerous, she said. Without full hearing she would get tackled unknowingly, resulting in several concussions, she said.
She and her team made the Storm Shield essentially to do three things.
First, thermal plastic polyurethane cups absorb the shock of a hit, keeping the hearing aids functioning while protecting the expensive devices. The headband steadies them in place, and waterproof material keeps out rain, wind and sweat, she said.
Second, the materials are lightweight, she said, enhancing wear-ability.
“If it is meant to be worn by athletes, we wanted to make sure the device was not too bulky. You don’t want something heavy when playing or working out.”
Third, a detector system in the back will buzz if it senses an approaching danger.
“Let’s say someone is cycling and there is a quiet EV car behind them. The headband would buzz and that creates an extra layer of protection,” she said. That feature would be good for hearing bike riders as well.
She made the point that she wants to make the prototype into a commercially marketed product that is usable not just for athletes, but for all active, hard-of-hearing individuals.
Each team will receive funding for two years of support from Samsung to help them transform their prototypes into commercially viable products.
“We wanted to make it as diverse as possible,” said Yang. “When you are creating something, you want to make your market as broad as possible.”
She has joined the Caltech Track and Field Team, where she does hurdles and sprints. Freshmen do not declare a major for at least year, so she’s taking a wide range of classes, she said. But she thinks she’ll eventually concentrate on computer science and applied mathematics.
She also plays classical guitar, according to the Caltech sports website.
What’s next for the Storm Shield?
“We want to go for a patent,” she said. “To protect the idea. And we definitely want to keep developing it,” Yang said.
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