| Page (1) of 1 - 09/21/06 |
 email article |
 print
page |
|
How a young engineer used CoCreate One Space Designer Modeling to develop his Deuce
Snowboarding has been around for more than 40 years, and has become hugely popular over the last 10 to 15 years. After a few initial designs that came and went, the industry standardized on a snowboard featuring two edges and often built with polyethylene or graphite material and metal. The design has been around for years and works considerably well.
As with board sports such as surfing, skateboarding and even wakeboarding, enthusiasts of their respective sports, especially those with mechanical aptitude, enjoy pushing the limits with new and often radical designs that can change their respective boarding landscape. Simon Anderson and his three finned thruster surfboard in 1980 forever changed the sport of surfing, while the Z-boys of Dogtown fame in the 1970s did the same for skateboarding. Snowboarding enthusiast and aerospace engineer R. Todd Belt hopes to change the sport of snowboarding with his new snowboard design, called the Deuce. It is a radical design developed with the help of CoCreate One Space Designer Modeling, a digital design tool used in many industries. After hearing of this new design, we spoke with Belt, executive manager of Deuce Snowboards, LLC.
DMN: How long have you been snowboarding and are you a designer/engineer by training?
RTB: I received my BSE in Aerospace Engineering from ASU in 1994, and my MSME in Mechanical Engineering from SJSU in 2002.
DMN: In board sports, ideas are acted upon with products and often revisited in the future. As with surfboard design, four finned surfboards followed the standard three fin board in the early 80s but then disappeared. Today, many surfboard shapers, with the help of CAD design software, are revisiting the four fin design. How did you get the idea of a multi-edged snowboard and is this design a revolutionary change, if not for the snowboard industry, for snowboard design?
RTB: . . . I was doing the mental exercise of establishing the pros/cons of snowboards/skis. From that I realized that snowboarders had a significant disadvantage due to the single snowboard edge. I set about to create a means of giving an additional edge, and voila. In my subsequent research I have found that there were other attempts at creating multi-edged snowboards, one as early as 1984, but they were all unworkable. I don't think I would have figured it out without my engineering training, and the use of my CAD package obviously compressed my design time and mitigated prototyping expenses. The last significant technology was the metal edge in the late 70's. The Deuce Snowboards' MES concept is pretty revolutionary, and is going to be highly disruptive to the industry.
DMN: You used CoCreate One Space Designer Modeling to help develop the prototype. Why did you go with CoCreate One Space Designer Modeling? What were the factors that swayed your decision?
RTB: As for my choice of OneSpace. In the interest of full disclosure, I do have prior experience with OneSpace, so I was past the learning curve. That said, I did try a 30 day trial version of their leading competitor, and in that time I became proficient and I was comfortable that I would have been able to use it as well. In the end I stuck with OneSpace for a few reasons. First, it was far more affordable. In the all important initial two year window that I am in, I need to keep expenses low, and OneSpace's competitor would not offer a pricing plan that acknowledged that. Second, history-based design is highly constrictive. I believe that the ideal solid modeler is by default like OneSpace's Dynamic Modeling, but with easy insertion of parametrics where appropriate, something of a hybrid of history based and dynamic modeling. In addition, the dynamic modeling approach is more natural in a sense since the designer more closely modifies the part the way one would actually machine the part. This assists the designer in readily developing a more manufacturable part.
 |
| Designer R. Todd Belt works on a new design |
DMN: How long did it take you to go from your idea to the first generation prototype?
RTB: It took me nine months to go from my first thoughts of the general concept to having my first working prototype, not to mention having patent protection, etc. As for finished product, we are still not there just yet. I didn't get my second prototype done until the end of last season, which gave me really only one day to find a few bugs in the design. I have since modified the design and we should know more in a few months. But I did do a radical redesign from Proto1 to Proto2 in about one month.
DMN: How many hours of on the slope testing did you perform? During the course of how many weeks did you tweak the design based on feedback?
RTB: On-the-slope testing has only been accomplished for the first proto, that is ignoring the few hours for the Proto2. For Proto1, we were up at Lake Tahoe for about eight different weekends. About half of that time someone else was riding
the first Deuce prototype. From their direct feedback and from watching what they were trying to do, I came up with a few attributes that they wanted and then I set about redesigning the mechanism in my mind again and then solidifying it again on the CAD.
DMN: How does the multi-edged snowboard perform compared to a traditional snowboard? Are there differences say in powder and packed powder and icy conditions when compared to that of a traditional snowboard?
RTB: The advantages over a traditional snowboard are laid out in our website:
http://www.deucesnowboards.com/technology.php
And they are
* Tighter turns and faster stops
* Improved grip on hard pack and ice
* More forgiving leading edge
* Increased tip-to-tip flex for more bounce
* No toe and heel drag
* Smoother ride
Our initial testing has been only on groomed runs, so I can't state any performance differences for powder, etc.
 |
| Doing a little R&D at Lake Tahoe. |
DMN: Is there just one model of snowboard or is there a line of board?
RTB: We have just one design and size right now. The length is 160cm, which is by far the most common snowboard length. We will also offer a few color options. We will of course expand our offerings quickly once we get the sales started. However, our initial customers will be first adopters. People who are innovative, and want to be out front with the next
technology. Not only are these pioneering first customers very special, but these first boards are very special as well, and to emphasize that each one is serialized with it's own unique number machined into the metal.
For more information, visit www.deucesnowboards.com
John Virata is senior editor of Digital Media Online. You can email him at jvirata@digitalmedianet.com
