Skeleton: The design of a foot-wakeboard mounting system

Skeleton: The design of a foot-wakeboard mounting system

Weerts, L.F.

Jansen, A.J. (mentor)
Jellema, A.H. (mentor)

Industrial Design Engineering

Design Engineering

Master of Science Integrated Product Design

2014-08-21

Manufacturers of extreme sports equipment are constantly seeking to provide the user with both ultimate adrenaline and a feeling of safety and control. These factors drive manufacturers to conducting ongoing research in order to develop the perfect equipment that meets all demands. Wakeboarding is trend sensitive and user demands are high, not only on performance and safety but also on aesthetics. Jobe Sports International is brand owner, manufacturer importer, developer and distributor of watersports equipment. Since the emerging of wakeboarding the Dutch based company has been manufacturing wakeboarding gear. Within the Jobe product category of wakeboarding, several developments took place over the last couple of years such as new shapes of the boards and the use of new core materials. However, the design of the wakeboard bindings did not change during this period of time in contrast to other brands that released different innovations in binding design. Furthermore, sponsored riders of the Jobe wakeboarding team, that are considered as the main source of providing product feedback to the product development team of Jobe, have indicated that the binding does not fulfil their needs. The binding is placed on a baseplate that is thick what creates a distance between the foot and the wakeboard of 40mm, the boot does not provide enough support to the ankle because the shaft becomes weak over time and the binding looks bulky. Besides the problems indicated by the sponsored riders the company faces another challenge: the current design of the binding makes use of a patent, a method of making the binding assembly. As a result Jobe pays a fee to the patent owner for every binding sold in the US and Australia. Above indicators ask for a design proposal that stands out in the wakeboard market and meets, or even exceeds user needs. In order to achieve this the design proposal should comply with a number of formulated criteria: the foot-wakeboard mounting system should get around US Patent 7,766,711 B2, has a sleek and slim appearance, is protective for the feet and ankles and has an improved feeling of control. Through a process of designing and developing many ideas were transformed into three concepts and one in particular showed the most potential. This concept was expected to meet high standards while being suitable for mass-production. Additionally, this concept was most distinct in appearance in regard to the competition. The chosen concept consists of two main parts: an external skeleton combined with a separated sneaker. The skeleton is a uniform body that does not make use of any kind of connection method described in the patent. The sneaker is equipped with stiff heel compartment, a thermo formable liner and a insole following the contours of the users’ feet. A prototype for testing and validation was made and a practical test on a cable way was performed. Results of the test were promising: the binding provided significant control to the rider, the binding was easy to take on and off and did withstand the forces of the landing of a big jump. Further development should focus on increasing the stiffness of the baseplate and improve the aesthetic quality of the design proposal.

binding
wakeboarding
watersports

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:701ff19f-067b-4fd5-bc17-7db94f6ce6b3

Campus only

Student theses

master thesis

(c) 2014 Weerts, L.F.