The intersection of sports and technology.

Every year extreme athletes perform increasingly more complex tricks at the X Games. While this is exciting for athletes, the fast pace and technical nature of the crazy tricks have made it harder for casual TV viewers to follow along. Tricks simply have too many rotations, flips, and complexity for the casual viewer to digest. Intel saw this disconnect between the extreme athlete and casual TV viewer and decided to use their technology to make a more engaging experience for both. Their vision was to mount a small device to the athletes' snowboards that monitored speed, height, distance, rotation, and landing impact. The idea was to display these metrics in real time during the live broadcast for TV viewers so they had a better idea of what each trick entailed.

I worked on this project during my time at the product design consultancy D2M. While Intel was tasked with designing the underlying circuit board and algorithms to make this project a reality, they contracted D2M to assist with much of the design, mechanical engineering, and production of the device. I worked with senior mechanical and electrical engineers to map out a successful architecture and was responsible for the bulk of the final product's design and mechanical engineering.

Compact and understated.

Intel approached us with an open-ended vision and a few key requirements. They wanted something that blended into the snowboard so it didn't distract the athletes and that was as compact as possible to convey their brand commitment to miniaturization. They wanted the product to be rugged and waterproof so it could survive the harsh environment of the Winter X Games Big Air. And they needed something that could both be easily attached to a snowboard and easily be swapped out when the battery runs low. Intel paired us with an industrial design group to help explore various form factors but we ultimately dictated the final design.

Considering a range of design solutions.

Before doing any design work, I participated in a group brainstorm that helped inform the prototyping phase. The topic of the brainstorms was “how might we attach a device to a snowboard?”. Our group of 4-5 designers and engineers explored possible product paradigms, user experiences, and mechanisms that answered this questions. We considered a wide range of design solutions and then, after the brainstorm, discussed the most promising ideas that we wanted to incorporate in the prototypes. Most notable was the “buckle” paradigm: a design solution that was already familiar in the extreme sports community thanks to GoPro.

Designing a compact and robust device.

This project required a lot of prototyping to hone in on a design that was compact, understated, and user-friendly. I started by importing Intel's electronics into SolidWorks, arranged them in various configurations, and created rough forms around them. From here I refined the form to be increasingly more compact while making the internal brackets increasingly more robust. Frequent 3D printing was crucial for evaluating the user experience touchpoints and honing in on a form that was both compact and visually pleasing. We also relied on athlete and client feedback to make final adjustments following initial testing. All of this prototyping and refinement led to a product that was sleek, compact, and incredibly rugged. And, most importantly, a product that wouldn’t be distracting to riders.

Designing for extreme conditions.

I had to explore many engineering solutions due to the extreme operating conditions of this device. The key challenges involved reliably mounting the product to the snowboard, ensuring that the internal electronics were compact and robust, and waterproofing the device. All of these solutions came together into one rugged device.

Optimizing the user experience.

Getting the device on and off the rider’s snowboard was the first engineering challenge I looked at. We wanted the device to quickly and easily attach to the rider’s board, but we also needed the connection to be strong and compact. We considered quarter-turn features and screw-down options, but we quickly decided to move ahead with a GoPro style clip and adhesive solution. The thinking was that riders were already familiar with the user experience paradigm so it would be less distracting for them. And the locking mechanism was easy to operate while wearing gloves—ideal for a snowy environment. However, because the clips added a few millimeters to the device’s overall footprint, I had to explore various ways to integrate them as compactly as possible. This involved rapid prototyping to hone in on the size and feel of the snap-engagement feature. As for the adhesive, we researched and tested a few adhesive options while determining the optimal application procedure for a cold and wet environment. Altogether the mounting solution offers an ideal optimization of user experience, robustness, and size.

Finally came the waterproofing. This had an unusual constraint: it had to be air-permeable. Because the internal electronics included an altimeter for measuring the rider’s height off a jump, the device’s internals needed to equalize air pressure with the outside air. Our solution to this problem involved a custom O-ring and Gore-tex breathers. Thanks to the small pore size of the Gore-tex breathers, air is allowed to pass through them but water cannot. When paired with the custom O-ring, the device was incredibly waterproof yet still air-permeable.

Beautifully compact and robust.

After many weeks of engineering exploration, prototyping, and refinement, we arrived at the final design. It was comprised of two parts: the “puck” and the “mount”. The puck was the primary device that held all of the electronics while the mount is what attached to the board with VHB. The pucks could quickly be swapped in and out of the mounts thanks to their user-friendly design.

As for the materials and finish, the main parts of the puck are made from injection molded white Delrin in a matte finish. Delrin is both durable enough for the harsh X Games conditions and is slick enough to make sliding the puck in and out of the mount feel smooth. The white matte finish also helps the product blend into the rider’s snowboard so it’s not distracting during competition. Meanwhile the base of the mount is made from CNCed aluminum and waterproof VHB. The aluminum has a high enough surface energy to ensure that the VHB properly sticks in the cold environment, and it gives the product a premium high-tech finish.

The final product was used live during the 2016 Aspen X Games to great success. Despite the extreme weather conditions and high-stakes nature of live TV, everything worked perfectly.

Designed for debugging.

Because of this project’s rapid timeline and high publicity, we also needed to design the product with debugging in mind. Intel spun out three versions of their main PCBA while they honed in on a layout that reliably recorded and transmitted rider data, and we had to ensure that all three versions of their PCBA would fit within our design. Additionally, if they had to debug any devices the day of the X Games competition, they needed to be able to quickly access the components and reassemble the devices. As a result, we designed our internal architecture to make debugging effortless and we used self-tapping screws to make reassembly easy. Ultimately everything came together quite smoothly.