“I shot bigfoot”
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“oops”
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It’s a sign of just how silly your TV show is when a Bigfoot plot seems much more plausible.
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Yes, it’s stormtrooper armor! No, foam armor is not 501st-compliant, but I don’t care even a little bit because there was nothing 501st-compliant about the entire costume. Yes, regardless of how carefully I drafted the pattern for comfort and maneuverability (I can put the whole thing on without assistance! It’s remarkable how much planning that took!), it wound up being a vastly uncomfortable series of bad ideas and I hated every second of wearing it. Especially the way it squeaked whenever I moved. And I sweated off all my makeup literally within 20 minutes.
But it was 100% worth it for the look on the author’s face when I showed up to her signing dressed as the character from her book.
Yeah, EVA floor mats, while an amazing and versatile costuming material, are very, very far from being breathable or temperature-neutral, and no one mentions that in the tutorials. (Possibly because it should be obvious…)
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Aw that looks awesome! Nice job!
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Granted they’re not wearing armor, but it would be nice to see this have a use for farm field workers.
Of course, I can’t see the owners ponying up for the field hands.
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I started wearing a Tyvek suit while gardening and working on painting projects. It seemed like an easy way to keep the bugs and toxic materials away from my skin. Since we’ve had record heat and humidity in PA this year, if I’d heard of this before it would’ve been worth every penny. Those suits could also be sold as personal sauna/weight loss devices. 
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Ask anyone suffering through the hottest US summer on record if they’d wear one of these vests. The answer (at least after they tried it on for 10 minutes or so) would be a resounding “YES”. My nephew suffers from MS; I may buy one for him. An old girlfriend’s sister had MS and wanted a similar jacket in the late 80’s. They were $5K at the time.
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OH for sure, if this was something I’d wear on a regular basis, it isn’t bad. But I am lucky I have a job indoors and like I said for costuming, I don’t do it often enough to make it worth it. (Also wonder how it would add bulk and fit in my suit or not…)
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Ask them how much the hospital bill they’d be willing to front for heat exhaustion/ stroke.
Given the location, that would be a reasonable PPE expense. We have special flame resistant labcoats that run about $200. A good pair of work boots can also get around that level. If you’re saving money on the back end by not sending people to the hospital AND on the front end letting people be more productive, that sounds like a win-win to me. See if they will front for 1 or two on a trial basis.
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The nerd stuff: using a phase change material to passively cool is kind of…cool. I’m curious to see what they’re using. Water has a HUGE enthalpy of fusion, but with the drawback that it’s FP is zero C or lower. Not really “tissue friendly”
If they can bring the cost down, another large market would be runners. My performance rapidly decays with temperature increases, so having something like this might well be worth the weight.
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Its increasingly common in cosplay too, and they’ve been pretty common in special effects since the 80’s. Its one of the innovations Predator was responsible for. IIRC the first ones used were stripped out of mil surp flight suits. If they’re making a particularly good cooling vest at a fair price there’s a much larger market then fur suit enthusiasts.
A few years ago my friends and I were part of the cast at a local renaissance fest, and a guy at my larp made us very decent looking knightly armor out of roofing aluminum. The fest was in mid-August, but I was amazed at how cool that aluminum armor stayed even in 90-degree sun.
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There are already phase-change cooling products on the market: TechKewl, Glacier Tek, All Tuff USA, Ergodyne, Miracool, and First Line Technology are just a few of the brands.
Most require some mild refrigeration to “recharge” the phase-change pack (though First Line’s products use a proprietary salt mixture that freezes at 84 deg. F, so they can “recharge” at any temp below that.)
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I’ve been working on a project lately that involves an exploration of lifestyle and culture in the late 21st century. The most advanced technology of that era is… cosplay. The practical realization of one’s innermost fantasies is imagineering of the highest order.
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