SurfSens Brings Surfing Into the Computer Age 42
cylonlover writes "In an activity that for many of its participants is akin to a religion, the merging of surfing and technology might seem a bit like blasphemy. But while surfing is still about lifestyle for many of us, these days it's also a competitive sport offering huge amounts of prize money, so it's no surprise to see the emergence of boards packing more than just polyurethane within their fiberglass shells. With the aim of 'turning feelings into facts and figures,' research company Tecnalia and Spanish surfboard manufacturer Pukas have teamed up to create a surfboard that packs a gyroscope, accelerometer, GPS compass, pressure sensors and strain gauges to measure the flex of the board."
flex and return speed (Score:2, Insightful)
Recently surfboard flex and return speed have bean at the forefront of board design. Unfortunately there are two very big problems with trying to design a board that has perfect flex. One is that surfers descriptions are flawed. A surfer might say a board feels stiff when the board is actually very flexible. The stiff feeling comes from the board having a fast return speed from flex. The second problem is that a board that has the best new flex design could get bad reviews because it is not what people are used to. With the computerized surfboard it will be possible to get to the bottom of these kinds of subtleties. This really could revolutionize surf board design.
I would love to hear what any of the Computational Fluid Dynamics folks might have to say about all of this.