Stop The Chipping!
The Solution to Stop Broken Skateboards.
What is this move called?
The name of the company?
The Problem
Skating is an extreme sport in where the person uses a deck with trucks and wheels to do tricks, drop down ramps, or just cruise around. The problem is the decks. The deck is the wooden part of the board (maple wood) where you add grip tape and where the hardware goes to add the trucks. When popping the board, the tail or nose of the deck starts to lose wood making a problem called razor tail. Later on, this causes things like chipping and maybe the board might snap. This is during a period of 2-5 months.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1gdnwsBWGAZS78EM2vi8pzvIvdxHtf8JztjDSMhmOK1M/edit
Solution
Polymers
To resolve this problem, we need a product that is lighter, stronger, and cheaper. Most boards are made from 7 sheets of plywood glued together. So for this I looked all through the net and found a couple of things. This a material stronger than kevlar, light as a t-shirt, and cheap as dirt.
This is a stronger and improved polymer. Another is Graphene paper and Bucky paper. They are both paper thin but that's it in similarities. Graphene paper is 5 to 6 times lower density, 2 times harder with 10 times higher tensile strength and has 13 times more bending rigidity than steel. Buckypaper is 10 times lighter and 500 times more stronger than steel. Plus, it’s 50,000 times thinner than a piece of human hair.
How It Works
My theory is if me cover one of these polymers with the lightest but hardest wood possible (not maple: that’s what decks are made of) then we could have the strongest deck possible. Having this type of protection will give the deck at least >1 year of durability. If this polymer is applied correctly, then problems like chipping will decrease by >50%.
The benefit is the price. A carbon fiber board made by Ixo Carbon Inc. cost 100.00 €. That's around the $114-$125. Just my board cost about $122.00. That won’t include griptape, but that will got around $8-$15. Pretty much, your paying for a better board for the same price. The trucks cost $21.95 and the wheels cost $35. Add that plus $15-$110 in bearings and your hardware and deck cost $42.05. Decks cost from $30-$100. Of course, I don’t about shipping and handling but around the same price and way better.
About Me: Ulises Gamez
Email: juaregul@students.pittschools.org
Location: Wellcome Middle School, North Memorial Drive, Greenville, NC, United States