Date of Award

5-8-2023

Degree Type

Capstone Project

First Advisor

Bahram Nassersharif

Abstract

A lot of kids, teenagers and young adults struggle to ride longboards because there is no safe way to properly stop the longboard after it has reached a very high velocity. For this project we will investigate and come up with a safe braking system that longboard riders can use.

To suit the needs for this project, the design must be able to be manufactured twice, once for a prototype and once for a final product, and the total price cannot exceed $300. The design must also be realistic and professional, and most importantly, safe for public use. By using Pugh and QFD analysis, and having lots of discussions and meetings, our original 120 concepts were narrowed down into the three concepts that fit the majority of our design requirements. Our top idea was a circular brake pad with a bicycle brake handle, our second idea was a controller activated system, and our third remaining idea was to have calipers attached to a donut shaped disc. Our team decided to go with the first idea of a circular brake pad, which evolved into a braking system where a rider will squeeze a mechanical brake lever, so that a mechanism that screws onto the axle will move a circular rubber brake pad in a horizontal direction towards the wheel, causing the wheels to stop.

A detailed product design breaks down each component of the braking system, and discusses the material of each part and the dimensions. A market analysis was also performed to investigate what other longboard braking systems were invented and what we could do to make ours unique and different. A financial analysis was performed to make sure that with all of our production costs, we will not exceed our budget of $300. Our proof of concept was a 3D printed braking system attached to a set of large longboard wheels that we bought from a company and we used it to test the mechanism’s ability to slow down the wheel.

During the spring semester, we had to make some design adjustments, and we redesigned our product three times. After manually and CNCing the parts, we were able to build our final product without going over our budget limit. Our final product was a V-brake style system, affixed to the skateboard axle with two rubber pads contacting the wheel surface. Once this was fully assembled, we were able to complete two tests, one was to measure heat generation between brake pads and wheels, and the other was to measure braking time. Both were successful and we considered our product to be finished. In the future, we plan to conduct different tests, adjust materials and develop new features as a torque arm, and request a patent for our idea.

Comments

Team Name: Team 13: Invention Capstone

Sponsor: Bahram Nassersharif

Document Reference: URI-MCE-CAP-PDR-2022-13

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