A new facility on Fort Drum is designed to help soldiers carry out their ideas in a timely fashion.

A hand-held rocket launcher, also known as a “Goose,” can be wildly effective. However, the size and weight of them logistically make them pretty difficult to carry around.

“The issues that soldiers have walking these launchers are that they are heavy and they start sliding on the back. The straps get loose,” said 1st Lt. Cameron Tomczyk.

However, in these situations, soldiers say they often come up with their own solutions.

“The goose grabber is a bunch of straps that grab your ‘Goose,' " Tomczyk added.

It’s often a smaller issue that generates a soldier's biggest need. Small issues, though, don't garner a ton of attention on a larger scale.

“So, if a soldier who carries a heavy machine gun thinks he has a better way to do it, it's not like Congress comes in saying like, ‘hey, can we give $35 to develop the strap for this?’ ” Tomczyk added.

So, instead of soldiers having to go without or come up with something on the fly, the 10th Mountain Division has a solution called the Innovation Lab.

“We don't innovate for just the sake of innovating, right? We've got people who do that. We've got experts to do that. We innovate to solve tactical problems,” 10th Mountain Division Commanding General Major General Scott Naumann said.

Having concerns with things like gun handle cases, drone propellers, even how they carry their water on the rucksack, soldiers can bring those problems to the innovation lab, and work on them immediately.

“After deployment or before deployment, they could come in here with an idea and we would work that work with them to make that be something that they can take on their deployment the next time,” lab manager Erica Uzmann said.

The lab has all the equipment needed, from saws and mill grinders to sewing machines and 3D printers.

“It is definitely morale lifting to be like, ‘Hey, I had this problem and I was able to, you know, like Big Army is looking down on me.’ The Army is like, ‘hey, we noticed civilians' problems. We can't give you like a custom-made solution for everything, but here's all the resources you need to solve it,'" Tomczyk said.

While the lab will be used mostly for those smaller problems, there can be a larger picture. Naumann is thinking battlefield tactics, deception.

“We got to somehow create some device that makes it look like the signature of a big command post, but really there's nothing there,” Naumann said.

Soldiers with the lab say some replacement pieces crafted in a lab or with a 3D printer are contracted out, and replacements can only be temporary. However, they want to use the contracted parts anyway, because they are specially designed for fit and use with the object they are used for.