George De Mestral

Inventor of velcro

George De Mestral's life

He was born on June 19, 1907 in Vaud, Switzerland. When he was 12 he designed a toy airplane and received his first patent at 12 years old. Graduated from Federal Institute of Technology. George was married three times to Jeanne Schnyder in 1932, Monique Panchaud de Bottens in 1949 and finally he married Helen Mary Dale also in 1949. He died on February 8th,1990 in Commugny, Switzerland at the age of 83.

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The Discovery of Velcro

After going on a hunting trip, he got burrs stuck on his pants.he did not know how these burrs stuck to him,so he put the burrs under a microscope and found little hooks on the burrs.He then found loops on his pants that the hooks went in to.And that's how he found out about hook and loop/Velcro.

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George De Mestral

George did not have any kids . He worked on Velcro for 10 years, in 1955 he successfully patented Velcro and had a multi-million dollar company. He started selling 60 million yards of Velcro a year.

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Hook and Loop

Hook and loop are the things that make Velcro. It makes Velcro because the tiny hooks on the object that makes the tiny loops on the other object hook on it witch make's it stay together so when you pull it apart the loops unhook off the object.And that's how Velcro works.

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I think Velcro is important because

People use it everyday, there is Velcro in space shuttles. They have it in space shuttles because when people go to space they have velcro to hold things down so they won't be floating around.

George De Mestral

Inventor of velcro