Hi guys, it's Nate from Design Squad.

We got a question into the website from Minoo23 who wants to know, how does Velcro work?

That's a great question, Minoo23.

Velcro is actually a brand name for what's generically referred to as a hook and loop fastener.

Hook and loop fasteners are great ways to hold one thing together securely to another thing until you want to take them apart.

When you do want to take them apart, it's pretty easy, like this.

Apart.

Together.

Think these come in my size?

(Velcro ripping) Check it out.

On the bottom, the scratchy part, that's all the little, tiny hooks.

It's a bunch of little pieces of plastic shaped just like this.

On the top is the fuzzy part.

Those are the loops.

The loops get smashed onto the hooks, where they get cut.

That is why we call it a fastener: because it holds things together.

Now, the inventor of hook and loop actually came up with the idea after he noticed little burrs, or tiny seeds, stuck to his dog's fur.

When he looked at them up close, he saw the seeds had tiny hooks on them that would get caught in fuzzy things that were looped together, like his dog's fur.

He thought, "Hm, maybe I can use that same fastening method to fasten things together on purpose in a useful way."

Now, with a magnifying glass, we can only see a couple times' magnification, so I want to build a really big version that's a few hundred times bigger so you can really see how it works.

For the loops, I'm using plastic strapping like they sometimes wrap around cardboard boxes to help keep them shut.

Now, for the hooks, you guessed it: wire coat hangers.

Check out those nice hooks.

And when we put them together, just like on a shoe, when you push the hooks into the loops, they get caught up on each other, so when you pull them apart, they're held together pretty well.

Now, when you pull it apart, the hooks are actually flexing until they let go.

Stick it together to cut... (ripping) ...hook and loop.

Velcro.

(Velcro ripping) Like a lot of awesome inventions, the invention of hook and loop fasteners can be used all over the place.

One of the first places that the inventor thought he could use it was as a replacement for zippers.

He originally called it "the zipperless zipper."

Can you imagine having zippers on your shoes to keep them closed?

If you have any other questions about how things are engineered and how they work, send them into the Design Squad website.