“The genesis of Xenith was basically: there’s gotta be a better way.”

Athletes who play American Football regularly face high-impact tackles, the force of which can feel like being hit by a baby whale. As more research is being done into the potential effects of repeated head trauma on an athlete’s health, there is a renewed focus on safety measures in the sport being driven from the top down by the NFL.

Xenith was founded in 2006 by Vin Ferrara, who had played college football as a quarterback and was interested in creating a new game-changing type of helmet. Xenith’s unique approach is to use adaptive technology which allows the helmet to move independently to the athlete’s head on impact, protecting them from the majority of the force. Now, Xenith’s helmets are used across the globe and the company makes various different types of protective equipment including helmets, shoulder pads and core guards from their headquarters in Detroit, Michigan.

In this episode Chief Engineer Ron Jadischke takes us around their HQ to demonstrate some of the impact testing performed on their new helmets and explain the technology “under the hood” of certain models.

We also hear from Brian Thompson, who head’s up PTC’s CAD division, to talk about how PTC’s CREO technology can help Xenith find new ways to improve athlete safety.

Xenith is a customer of PTC partner PDSVision.

Find out more about Xenith here.

Find out more about CREO here.

Your host is Paul Haimes from industrial software company PTC.

Episodes are released bi-weekly. Follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter for updates.

Third Angle is an 18Sixty production for PTC. Executive producer is Jacqui Cook. Sound design and editing by Ollie Guillou. Location recording by Bryce Huffman. And music by Rowan Bishop.