Jaela resident invents massage machine to soothe tired muscles
Not only in Sri Lanka but the world over many lives are lost due to lack or inability of maintaining a healthy lifestyle and physical fitness. Modern lifestyles and the stress that accompanies it have been identified as the main problems
Physical fitness is the key to a healthy life and a body massage is one way where tired body muscles, after a hard day’s work or a fitness workout, need to be relaxed. However some sections of the society recognise massages as somewhat immoral, specially, since some of these spas have been raided for infamous and illegal activities.
Now a Sri Lankan entrepreneur has created a massage apparatus to be soon available in the market that could be used at home and take care of those tired muscles.
Last week the Business Times (BT) team met inventor - sat his residence off Jaela. Mr. Appuhamy is an athletics and physical fitness instructor by profession serving St. Benedict’s College, Kotahena; Buddhist Ladies College, Colombo and St Lawrence’s College, Wellawatte.
He ushered the BT team into the ground floor of his nearly completed 3-storey home, sans a factory or a workshop in the vicinity. Mr. Appuhamy showed us a barrel like instrument about 6 inches in diameter and about a feet-long with a wire and a three pin plug top attached to it.
While it seemed unlikely that an athlete-turned trainer could develop such a product, the answer lay in Mr. Appuhamy’s growing up years as he recalled how he helped his father in their welding shop.
He said he was enthusiastic in assembling miniature replicas of crude vehicles, starting from the roller made with a cigarette-tin that formed the main toy of all the children in the villages at that time. Though it appeared that he got the idea of making the massage instrument spontaneously, he said the idea of technological innovations was first imbibed in his inner mind since his childhood days.
Discussing fitness, he said that once one completes exhaustive physical fitness exercises, it is important to relax the tired muscles and one way it could be done is by massaging. He said that once massaging is done, not only the muscles could be relaxed but also the muscles would be rid of toxic gas.
He said that though there are small mechanically operated mas- saging instruments available in the market, the kind of machine he has invented, though portable is sturdy and conforms to the medical and other applicable conditions. The machine could be used independently without any other support.
The instrument is powered by a gadget run with a fan motor. As there is a cooling fan also fitted to the massage machine, it could be used continuously for 24 hours. He has also invented a larger model that could be used by physiotherapists.
As usual, Mr. Appuhamy too had to move from pillar to post to obtain the patent for his invention. He submitted the formula to the patent granting authorities on 17 November 2011 and received the certificate only on 30 December 2014.
The BT columns have been consistently reporting new inventions specially by those in the rural community and those who received publicity to their inventions have informed these columns that the publicity has helped them commercialise their products.
But many also complained that they found it extremely difficult to obtain patent registration and in every case it would be more than three years, while there are others who are waiting several more years to receive the certificate for their inventions.
Mr. Appuhamy told the BT that he has learnt through the BT columns that the National Science Foundation (NSF) is matching inventors with investors and thus now he has decided to approach NSF to find a suitable investor to commercialise this valuable product that would become essential in time to come as a health instrument because massaging, he says, according to medical authorities, is important in maintaining a good physique coupled with exercise.
He said that he has purchased necessary components from various sources to assemble this instrument, one or two pieces at a time. In the case of marketing the product, he said the components have to be turned out on a mass scale and it requires a large investment which he is unable to raise. Therefore, he said that he needs an investor to market this product, which, he is positive, would have a good demand.
While there were many inquiries to purchase this machine he is looking for an investor to produce it on a large scale basis. He demonstrated how easy it is to operate his massaging machine. Mr. Appuhamy could be reached at 072 8610206.