Musical Snowboard RampPrototype for Snowboard Parks

Ian MacDonaldECUAD Student Number 26207

Directed Study Fall 2014.

Now used in Snowboard Parks

This is a snowboarder rail seen on most mountains these days. Snowboarders and skiers like to do all sorts of tricks on the mountain and there are numerous variations of the kind of rail - but you get it. My idea is for the snowboarder to generate energy as hepasses over the rail and create resonance and therefore music. Quite sure this has not been done before. I think the best way to do this is by the boarder to be on top of a tubular structure and his board hits a form of lever that then hits the tube.

Here's a typical tubular xylophone - now if we turned all the tubes 90 degrees into one long linear tube with our selected musical notes

interspersed - the way we want them - we could create a melody as long as we have a form of striking the tube

The boarder hits an exposed piece sticking out of top edge of the tube. Through the tube's inner lever action, an arm would then hit the inside of the tube to make a note. Each section would be a different length - hence a different note. It would be easy to create a melody. Each note section would have a standard method of attaching to the next one down the line so you could create any melody you wanted They could be made in large quantities to get some economies of scale.

This linear tubular xylophone could be adapted to other areas: bicycling, walking, running, people in wheelchairs or walking their dog

I found some pipe and when I banged on different ones - guess what - there was a discernible note to the different ones depending on pipe dia.( up to 48 inch) length and wall thickness. Now if only I had perfect pitch. But I downloaded some apps

that can assist. I got a few of these heavy monsters and played around.

Metal stock and setup at Emily Carr University metal shop

Other components

Striker. This prototype shape made out of plywood to determine best shape. Finally made out of plastic.

Drill rod steel cut to form striker.

Striker

Striker assembly Top or striker protruding out of tube top

Working at ECUAD metal shop

Musical tubes got tagged

Musical Snowboard Ramp

Musical Snowboard Ramp– now off to the snowboard park for demos!

Conclusion – Proof of Concept ONLY• This is a prototype – and nothing else other than a prototype.

• It has not been engineered for structural integrity.

• It has not been designed to be safe – so far. The A-frame structure was necessary for prototype construction as this piece could not be permanently anchored anywhere at school. The best system would be to have the vertical holding posts placed in concrete as such:

I also suggest the musical tubes be roundedat top for better safety

Ian MacDonald ECUAD Student 26207 macdonald.ian@gmail.com 604-897-9353

_______________________________________________________Now off to the slopes for demos and further prototyping!