nu Finger Snowboards

2021-02-01

Another project born out of sheer boredom at the time, Finger Snowboards were my cheap and easy take on the much more popular (and functional) Tech Decks. Plus, we had just had one of the largest snowstorms in NYC, and a snowboard was much more appropriate to take outside than anything with wheels.

The initial design had two cylinders to fit the index and middle fingers in, based on my assumption that (just like real snowboard bindings), there would need to be some sort of restraints preventing the board from leaving your "feet".

This failed horribly - during testing (using my roommates as guineau pigs), the little cylinders did not fit some fingers, and, since there was a variability between the thickness of the index and middle fingers, having a predefined diameter of cylinders made it impossible for the boards to be useable by multiple people.

Also, you weren't able to do stupid tricks, like doing a kick flip, which completely negated the whole point of the project in the first place.

Final Board, PrintedFirst Iteration Final Board, Printed, and the First Iteration

Over some iterations, I removed the "bindings" entirely, replacing them with inset pads and a tiny lip to help keep fingers secure while still allowing for tricks and airtime. I also curved up the edges of the board, to enable easier carving, and to make it easier to "kick" up the board to start tricks.

I also branded the boards with an inset "nu", just for fun.

I ultimately printed around 15 of these, gifting them to different friends. We tried getting clips of sick tricks, but all of us were too terrible at doing anything interesting with them, and the nu finger snowboards became a paperweight and souvenir instead.

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