Inventor’s Device Takes Off

Boston Herald:

In a world increasingly reliant on high-tech gadgets that have become the new appendages, Jack Cribbs’ WristWriter invention is decidedly low-tech.

“I labeled it early on as a CDA: a caveman digital assistant,” he said.

Cribbs markets the WristWriter as a “tool belt for the wrist.” It has a scroll-able writing surface that straps to your wrist, with space to hold a pencil and Velcro-like patches to attach other items, such as a measuring tape.

The product is now sold by the world’s largest airplane pilot retailer, but Cribbs sees it as helpful to other professions, from woodworkers like himself to truckers to physicians who receive patients’ vital signs while on the road.

The Plymouth resident was toiling alone in his shop a few years ago when he had trouble finding his measuring tape and pencil.

“The final straw was that I couldn’t find the notes that I wrote on a piece of wood,” Cribbs said. “So my initial intent was to find something that would keep all these things together where I could find them.”

Something with a wrist attachment would work perfectly, Cribbs thought. Believing such a product was likely already on the market, he went to a Staples office supply store only to find Post-its and notebooks. But when he saw a bin of disposable cameras as he was leaving, Cribbs had an “I’ve got it!” moment.

“That’s where the scroll method occurred to me,” he said. “On the way home, I passed the pharmacy and realized probably the best thing to mount it on was a wrist brace.”

With adding-machine paper that he had at home, Cribbs pieced together a rough prototype in two hours.

Pilots use them to write down frequencies, clearances, weather data and briefings, said Doug Ranly, catalog manager at the Ohio company.

“Pilots are a unique crowd, and this is a unique product that really does fill a need,” Ranly said. “We generally fly in small cockpits that are cramped for space, so the ability to be able to throw this on your wrist and not have a cumbersome notebook or kneeboard is really in high demand in the general aviation industry.”

Photo by Matthew West.

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