Snowboard Accessories Display System Nourishment& Social Change Prof. Amanda Huynh Anran Mina Li Spring 2021 1 Repurpose Your Snowboard This system allows you to turn your old/unused snowboard into a display shelf for storing your snowboarding accessories. It repurposes snowboards to extend their lives while also educating snowboarding enthusiasts about the environmental impacts of this sport. 2 3 4 I wouldn’t even call snowboarding a sport. For me it’s just a way of life. —Travis Rice I was born and raised in a southern part of China, where it barely snow in the winter. I have never seen such a heavy snowstorm before I came to the US. I immediately obsessed with snow the moment I saw them beautifully fall like a dancing angel. The first resort I have ever been to in my life is called Mountain Creek. It is a small resort in Northern New Jersey, and that’s also the place where I met my boyfriend. Right now, I am a snowboarder myself for almost four years. and I have bought different kinds of snowboard and went to plenty of famous resorts in the US like Jackson Hole and Snowbird. I have seen so many spectacular mountains created by mother nature, and the most wonderful gift she gives us-snow. Snowboarding now becomes a part of my life. I rode 40 days in the past 20-21 season. I am so into snowboard that I built a snowboard by myself last year by using the Pratt woodshop. 5 My idea of making a snowboard by myself began with a question about how snow- boards are made. I ended up watching a lot of Youtube videos and viewing different suppliers’ websites. I learned that all snowboards are handmade in the factory. The assembly of the layers requires labor to bind them together with resin. I used my boyfriend’s favorite board as a master template to make the mold for vacuuming. I designed the board graphic and find a company that can print them. Then, I bought and prepared all the materials. I started making the board step by step according to the knowledge I learned from my previous research. In the end, I am glad that the board I made works well. It can hit big jumps and also carves deep. 6 7 Top Sheet Fiberglass Wood Core Rubber Foil Sidewall Metal Edge Carbon Fiber Screw Inserts Base Sheet 8 Within that half of inch thickness, there are six layers of materials in a snowboard. Every layer has its own function which makes the responsiveness and rigidity of a snowboard. Snowboard has a wood core that stores energy and gives pops. The carbon fiber and fiberglass layers provide extra rigidity and protect the wood core. The board has a metal edge that can carve into the snow and secure the layers inside. To achieve such a seamless bonding between each layer, epoxy resin is used to laminate them together so that they endure vibrations, bending, cold tem- peratures, and pressure.1 Every single snowboard is put up by a person with the cutting, pressing, polish- ing by machines. There is no one-for-all machine that can make the snowboards from beginning to end. Since there are so many materials in a snowboard, so different companies have different standards of material quality. For example, some companies use chemical resin made from petroleum while some companies use bio-resin which is plant-based. 9 Roughly 700,000 snowboards are sold worldwide in 2019. —Statista 2 Snowboards have a variety of shapes and lengths which determine their performance on the snow. For example, you need a powder board for riding in powder snow, you need a park board for landing a big jump. Snowboarders buy different boards not only they like the graphics but also they want to ride in different snow conditions. Snow- boards have to be waxed to reduce their friction between the snow and the board base. A regular-used board would last several years depending on its wear and tear. Snowboarders damage their boards mostly due to the collision with rocks or branch- es. Some cracks at the surface or the base can be repaired by the p-tex rod melting down and dripping into the cracks.3 Some cracks like the one in the right photo (one of my snowboards) are troublesome because the cracking has already exposed the inside top sheet. More riding like jumping and bending like tail press would make the cracks expand further and ultimately could break the board. 10 11 After several seasons of riding, snowboards endure wear and tear with cracks and scratches all over the boards. The initial problem that I observed is that people don’t know how to deal with their old snowboards. Snowboards are waterproof and su- per durable, so they seem to be impossible to break down like other trash. As people buy more boards and simply just have no space to store them, or they don’t like their boards anymore, they left the old snowboards on the street for others to pick up. I have never thrown or sell any of my boards because I always have that emotional connec- tion to my boards. I think my boards have their own personality which makes them more like friends to me. They witnessed my every little progress in snowboarding, as well as accompanied and protected me whenever I am riding in the mountains. But you can also see people just abandon their boards on the streets. 12 Because snowboards are not biode- gradable and are extremely difficult to disassemble, they often end up in landfills or are incinerated. 13 Preliminary Research What are snowboards made of? Top Sheet → Plastic Fiberglass → Silica sand, limestone, and soda ash. Hardwood core → Wood ABS sidewall → Plastic Carbon fiber → Carbon atoms Rubber Foil → Rubber Metal Edge → Steel Base Sheet → Plastic Epoxy → EPA+3-MCPD What are the different types of snowboards? Beginner → Intermediate → Expert All Mountain -- Freestyle -- Freeride -- Powder -- Split Board Softer Flex → Stiffer Flex 2×4 Insert Pattern -- 4×4 Insert Pattern Burton 3D Insert Pattern -- Channel Insert Pattern Are there any similarities of all snowboards? High-durability -- Waterproof -- Nose&Tail Can be mounted on the wall bother vertically and horizontally Strong Binding Connections Standard Binding Screw Size M6 1 , 0 14 © POW When we talk about winter, what do we PBT are produced by energy-intensive, think about it? Maybe holding a warm fossil fuel-driven methods which also ex- cup of hot chocolate while standing un- ploit our mother earth.4 For the snow we der the giant Rockefeller Christmas Tree, beloved, nevertheless helps cooling down or maybe cuddling with loved ones while the earth apart of their cold temperature. sitting next to a fireplace. For me, winter Snow cover reflects about 80 to 90% of means snow, and snow means I can go the sun’s energy back into the atmosphere snowboarding. However, the production allowing it to help regulate the exchange of of snowboard materials contributes to heat between the Earth’s surface and the damaging the fragile ecosystems that atmosphere, thereby cooling the planet.5 this planet’s organisms have adapted As a snowboarder, I’ve always wanted to to live in. Specifically, the emission of use design to help to alleviate the environ- greenhouse gasses through the pro- mental impacts behind snowboarding and duction of these materials contributes to the snowboard manufacturing process. the greenhouse effect.4 Earth’s surface Because while we are enjoying the snow is warmed by the suns contact with the from mother nature, we should also protect trapped heat and radiation in our atmo- our winters. With many questions in mind, sphere. Mining for graphite and bauxite I made a questionnaire and send it to my defaces the surface and contaminates snowboarding friends. This questionnaire the air of our planet. 4 The remaining asks them about their snowboarding ex- materials used in snowboards such as: perience and their ways to store boards steel, epoxy resin, fiberglass, p-tex and and accessories. 15 Questionnaire Sample Size: 54 16 17 1/3 of the respondents won’t use all of their boards for one reason. 2/3 of the respondents are not familiar with the snowboard manufacturing process. Almost half of the respondents say that they normally put/store their boards on the floors or at the corners. Only one person bought a storage shelf for organizing the accessories. Almost 1/3 of the respondents keep their old snowboards at home even though they don’t use them anymore. How to utilize snowboards as much as possible and extend their lives? How to educate snowboarding enthusiasts about the environmental impacts of their snowboards? Here are the two problems that I aim to solve with my design. Repurpose the snow- board can able to stop them from ending up in the landfill at this moment. Snow- boarding is not the same as skateboarding or surfing though they are all board sports. Snowboarding requires more gears such as different layers of clothing, helmets, gog- gles, gloves, protection pads, face and neck warmer, etc. Especially because snow- boarding is one of the winter sports which people have to wear thick jackets to repel coldness. Snowboarding is also a seasonal sport, so that these clothes and accesso- ries will be useless in other seasons, but they occupy a lot of space in people’s closets. So I ask myself: could I design a product for people to store their accessories while also displaying their boards? 18 19 Existing Repurposing Methods I also researched the existing repurposing methods of turning snowboarding into coat hangers or furniture.