Grayson Rosenberger, 15, won the 2007 Bubble Wrap® Competition for Young Inventors with his low-cost Bubble Wrap-based prosthetic leg covering, as well as a da Vinci Award from the National MS Society. He took his invention to Ghana, where his family does charity work with amputees.

1. What are the steps involved in  creating a finished Bubble Wrap prosthetic covering?
The first step is wrapping the big Bubble Wrap around the pylon of the leg. That creates the first layer, and the big bubbles serve as kind of rigid support for the rest of the cover. You use packing tape to seal up the edges, and after that you wrap the leg with small Bubble Wrap, and you tape up the edges on that.

You use a heat gun to mold the Bubble Wrap into the shape that you want it to be. The first layer of Bubble Wrap, the big bubbles, stays the same, but the small bubbles are changed. [The heat gun] can [also] seal up edges that you don’t want to use packing tape for, that you want a stronger seal for.

You wear gloves, and you go up and down the leg with the heat gun, and you use your hands to mold it into a calf or whatever muscle you’d like to create. You have to add little pieces of Bubble Wrap here and there, but that’s the basic format. I can do it in about 10 to 15 minutes now. The first time, it took about an hour.

The final [part of] the process is you pull a Knit-Rite stocking, which is a flesh-colored hose, over the entire leg so it looks like skin.

2.  What are your goals for this invention?
This is meant for Third World countries. In places like that, amputees are outcasts. Having a leg that looks real gives them dignity. If someone has this [covering], I hope that they feel like a normal person when they wake up in the morning. I just want to give them back a little dignity.

You never know what [people] may do when they get their spirits back up. Most people in places like Ghana, they think they can’t do anything. When we tell them they could be the next president of Ghana, they don’t believe us. But they can. And after we give them a leg, they might jump out of the clinic and go back to work, and do whatever they need to.

While we were in the clinic [in Ghana], 25 people came into the clinic in about 10 days, and every single amputee that came in wanted a Bubble Wrap covering on his or her leg.

3. What opportunities have you had as a result of winning the contest?
[Ten] weeks ago, I went to Las Vegas and I addressed the opening business meeting at the AOPA Assembly.

The week after that, I was privileged to go to the da Vinci Awards in Dearborn, Michigan. I received an award and I made a short speech. Dana Bowman [the first bilateral amputee to re-enlist in the Army], who is a nationwide motivational speaker, was at the awards, and he had obviously been reading up on me—it was pretty amazing that someone as cool as he is had been reading up on me!

This past weekend I was in Washington, D.C., where I helped out at Kicking for Kids Who Can’t, which is done by Limbs for Life; they invited me there.

4. How do you think this invention can be made available on a widespread basis?
Just by getting the word out. There’s not really an instruction booklet on how to make these coverings, [but] anyone can make [them]. Granted, I do have a certain way that I make the Bubble Wrap covering, and if people don’t hear about it, they won’t know how I make it. But if they read this article, they’ll know!

5.  What careers are you interested in?
I’m interested in going into the military. I’d like to go to the Coast Guard Academy or West Point—I’d like to fly helicopters and possibly go into mechanical engineering.

I’ve talked with several military leaders, and I had an article come out in Boys’ Life [the Boy Scout magazine] pretty recently. I had an interview today with an Eagle Scout recruiter. That looks good if you want to go to one of the military academies—they love the Scouts.

I’m doing everything I possibly can to get stuff on my resume, and doing my best to get good grades, so I’m working toward that goal.