Every Third Thursday has published a video of their most recent experiment: a 3D printed snowboard. The experiment, as you’ll see, was a success.
Printing a snowboard poses two immediate challenges: a snowboard is larger than most 3D printers’ build chambers. The second challenge is strength. 3D printers can produce objects but they often have limited ability to take physical stress; they break. Building a snowboard means you must solve both of those problems.
The ETT team did so – albeit not entirely with 3D printing. They first segmented the board into several pieces, each of which could be printed within the build chamber of the 3D printer at GrowIt3D, a southern California 3D print service. The pieces fit together in jigsaw fashion.
But was it strong? Evidently not – the jigsaw joints simply would not hold up the to stress of downhill action. The team decided to add several thin metal strips to solidify the board and testing proved out this approach.
Even more interesting was their design: the front part of the board was made much wider than normal, in a parallel experiment. This proved to work also, but it demonstrated the ability to rapidly test different snowboard forms by simply redesigning and printing new sections that can be bolted into the prototype snowboard.
Via YouTube (Hat tip to Jenna)
