Mystery Solved: What's with the U.S.'s big podium masks?

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

By this point, we're all too familiar with a wide variety of masks, from N95 medical-grade protection to homemade cloth-and-string creations. But as the U.S. ascends to the podium for medal after medal, viewers have spotted the team's, shall we say, distinctive masks.

Angular and blocky, with deep shadows and a complex pattern, the masks have drawn comparisons on Twitter to everything from dog muzzles to famed movie cannibal Hannibal Lecter to the Batman villain Bane, from "The Dark Knight Rises."

Link to tweet

Turns out that there's no nefarious intent behind the masks, just the megacorporation Nike. The masks are called the "Nike Venturer," and they're designed for training ... although they're not quite at the protective level of N95 masks.

The pattern on the masks is meant to evoke the Japanese art of origami, according to the company. “The unique origami-inspired pleated design allows for optimal air flow and air volume within the lightweight, mesh mask,” Nike said in a statement to the New York Times.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/olympics/mystery-solved-whats-with-the-uss-big-podium-masks/ar-AAMEDar

[eppur_se_muova]

1. They look like a good design, and I wish someone had created them earlier.

I'm sort of appalled that the journos emphasize the origami 'look' in preference to the extremely functional advantages of a pleated, bellows-like mask with a large internal volume that can be folded flat for storage.

Nest design stage: two chambers, with one-way valves so that the "inner" chamber (the one open to the nostrils) can only draw in air from the outside, and only expel air to the "outer" chamber (from which it diffuses outward through the filter), with both chambers pleated like bellows to expand and contract as needed. The inner chamber would experience rapidly rising and falling pressure and would expand and contract a lot; the outer chamber would function as a 'buffer' and increase in size to accommodate exhalations, then slowly shrink under the force of the material's elasticity as air diffused outward.

(Also, try changing the direction of the pleats so that the masks expand perpendicularly to the plane of the face. This would allow a greater change in volume on each cycle.)

[lagomorph777]

3. I don't want a mask that collapses when I inhale - squishes my nose shut.

Should be nice and stiff.

[demtenjeep]

2. I want some to wear in my classroom

absolutely love them