Harvard Students Win Dyson Award for 60-Second Concussion Screen

Three Harvard students won the 2026 U.S. James Dyson Award for Rumble Rims, an infrared eye-tracking headset that screens young athletes for concussions on the sideline.

On September 16, three Harvard University students — Radhika Saran, Cleo Pontone, and Sophia DeVito — were named U.S. National Winners of the 2026 James Dyson Award for Rumble Rims, a low-cost infrared eye-tracking headset built to screen child athletes for possible concussions right on the sideline. The system pairs a portable headset with a coach-facing mobile display and a recovery dashboard. The athlete completes an oculomotor task in invisible infrared light while cameras capture how the eyes follow, fixate, and move; the display then translates those measurements into real-time guidance on whether a player should come out of the game. The national prize carries $6,500 to support development, and the team now advances to the competition's international round.

The invention targets a gap between expensive clinical eye-tracking systems and subjective sideline checks, a point co-creator Radhika Saran made plainly: "If objective tools already exist, they should not be locked inside expensive clinical systems. They should be accessible where young athletes are actually getting injured." The design process was grounded in real needs — Good News Network reports the team's research with athletes, coaches, and medical professionals shaped a headset that moves with the athlete's head while keeping setup simple under sideline pressure. Early concepts exploring helmets, mouthguards, and even a black-curtain room were discarded once the team realized accuracy depended on controlling the relationship between eyes and cameras, not building a controlled room.

The need is large. Both Good News Network and the Youth Sports Business Report cite CDC analysis of the 2017 Youth Risk Behavior Survey finding that 15.1% of U.S. high school students — roughly 2.5 million — reported at least one sports- or activity-related concussion in the prior 12 months. According to the Youth Sports Business Report, about seven in ten emergency department visits for sports- and recreation-related traumatic brain injuries involve children 17 and under. Good News Network adds that if a minor-age athlete plays just 15 minutes of high-intensity sport with a concussion, it can double required recovery time. Crucially, the team positions Rumble Rims as a screening tool only — return-to-play decisions remain with qualified healthcare providers, and the Youth Sports Business Report emphasizes that distinction for any school or league considering it.

The $6,500 national prize funds the team's stated next steps: building and testing a higher-fidelity headset prototype, refining the oculomotor test, and validating the system with athletes, coaches, trainers, and medical advisors. Longer term, the inventors hope to pilot Rumble Rims with schools and youth sports programs. According to the Youth Sports Business Report, Rumble Rims advances to the international Top 20 shortlist announced October 14, with Sir James Dyson selecting global winners — each receiving $35,000 — on November 4. As coach Elliot Sawyer-Kaplan, who advised the project, put it per Good News Network: "Once we take the emotion out of the decision, it's not in the coach's hands, it's not in the player's hands."