Patent for Aquatic Learning Station

Hi. I'm Melon (Mary Ellen) Dash.

I founded a swim school in 1983 for adults who are afraid in water: Miracle Swimming School for Adults. At the beginning of the Covid 19 pandemic, we couldn't teach classes since we had to stay 6 feet from our students. How could we teach so that we would all feel safe from Covid and students could feel safe that they wouldn't drift away and panic since we weren't holding them at the wall? The answer appeared: build a device that would give each student his/her own learning station, independent of the touch of an instructor. The "Aquatic Learning Statio" was born.

Why didn't anyone think of this a hundred years ago! It's effective, reliable, simple, and inexpensive. At its first use, my students immediately said, "Melon, patent this!" It's now been in use for 9 months. People can teach themselves if they follow the simple (if surprising) instructions.

I'm raising funds to pay a patent attorney to file the utility patent ($8000), the graphic artist for line drawings ($500), and Fast Track—$1065 to get the patent to happen this year, not 2-3 years from now. I need a licensing agreement for a manufacturer of the Float Bar ($500). It will take $10,000 to start to let the world know this invention exists. 

Those last funds go to Google ads, outreach to trade organizations and communities that want to learn to swim, press releases, LinkedIn and Facebook Ads to backyard pool owners, swimming instructors, city and county adult lessons programs, swim schools , YMCAs, JCCs and Kroc Centers that teach adults. The remaining $500 covers GoFundMe's fees. If extra funds are raised they will be used for marketing, a MUST for getting an invention off the ground. I filed a Provisional Patent on 12/28/2020 and the formal filing must happen this year. As soon as the funds are raised, the attorney gets the green light. I'd like to raise it by May 1, 2021, my school's 38th anniversary but May 7 may be more attainable. Every penny will be accounted for as documented above and the report will be sent to each donor.

The World Health Organization declared drowning a global epidemic in 2014. People can learn to float and swim even without an instructor if they have this tool. Half the adults in the United States cannot swim: they're afraid in water over their heads. That's 114 million people—just in the U.S.—who can benefit from this.

Imagine that a man and a woman both want to learn to swim. The man goes to a traditional swimming class. The woman has taken traditional classes and she wants to try something else.

The man is told that learning to swim means moving his arms and legs "like this." He is "taught" stroke mechanics; at least the instructor tries. But he doesn't like putting his face in, isn't convinced that he floats, feels unsafe in water over his head, and doesn't feel as though his lessons are addressing his most urgent question: how can I be safe, first and foremost? And how can it be fun?

The woman doesn't want to be scared in lessons. She wants her instructor to meet her at her level and give her what she needs. She feels that if she finds the right instructor, she can be successful.

The man gets discouraged and doesn’t complete his course of lessons.

The woman reads my book, Conquer Your Fear of Water, which reveals essentials she hadn't heard before. After reading the first few chapters, she attaches the loop of the tether to the rail at the steps of her community pool with permission from the lifeguard. She puts on the belt and connects it to the loop with the quick-release buckle. Following the book, she lowers herself into the water, feeling safe and knowing she is in control because she won't drift away. She feels a sense of safety and comfort she hasn't felt in the water before. A new possibility is born. She feels the water holding her up. She has begun to learn to swim and she feels hopeful.

The book will give her every step of learning to swim from where she is today to being able to rest in deep water and move freely and comfortably in deep water for as long as she wants. She will gain confidence in shallow water until her learner's mind says, "I wonder if it works like this in the deep?" She'll attach the tether to the ladder in the deep end and begin to learn that she floats there and can remain in control there, too. She will learn to swim without learning anything about formal strokes.

Anyone can learn to swim safely in water, shallow or deep, if they feel safe all the time. The Learn-to-Float Bar and Tether guarantees that the student can feel safe.

The Tether connects the swimmer (student) to something stationary such as a railing at the pool steps or a rung of the ladder in the deep end. It could also connect to a hook in the wall of the pool where a rope divides the pool. The tether is made of three straps with side-release buckles.

The white strap below connects to the railing. The purple one is a belt. It has an extra "floating" buckle. The blue strap adds distance to the railing for learning the front float.

If there is no railing at the steps and the swimmer doesn’t want to learn at the ladder in deep water (understandable) she can learn with a Float Bar. This can be built with cross bars on the floor for extra stability or not. We sell them that way.

When the swimmer wishes to float further away from the bar, the third strap is added, extending her distance. It is adjustable. This tether provides unequivocal security as well as flexibility to adjust the distance from the bar as desired.

Seeing adults attain their swimming goals and wildest dreams is my idea of fun. I wrote and co-wrote two books and produced a DVD and podcast. I wrote an instructor training. Now I have "the gizmo." This is everything an afraid non-swimmer could possibly need—bar none (except the water)—to learn to swim in a fun, safe way on his first try, if he wants to learn on his own.

This job is mine to do. Thanks for helping my dream and so many others' swimming dreams come true!

Miracle Swimming School for Adults and the Miracle Swimming movement as well as the world's nonswimmers and swimming instructional agencies are the beneficiaries of this campaign.

#SmallBusinessRelief

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#watersafety

#learntoswim

#adultswimminglessons

#learntofloat

#melondash