Surfing Waves

Posted by foz1284


Hi All, first post on his forumso its good to meet you.

I am a final year Electronic Engineering student in bradford with limited surfing experience, When I first started learning last summer I found it fairly difficult to get standing up as I'm sure most beginners do.

For my final year project I decided to make a surfboard center of gravity measurement device which is in the picture below:




The Idea is that it measures the weight on each corner over a period of time whilst the surfer can practice a pop-up, this saves having to swim out and catch a wave every time you want to practice.

The device is linked up to a computer which will display a graph of where the users weight is on the board.

Are there any instructers out there which have an opinion as to whether they would us such a device and also has anyone seen anything lke this anywhere else, I have done a fair bit of research and not been abe to find much.

Any comments good or bad will be appreciated and you may even get a mention in my report which is due in at the end of next week.

Looking forward to your comments/criticisisms....maye even praise????

Mark Forster

WOW! Thats a pretty good idea mate.
Surf schools would put those to damn good use if it worked. Have you built a prototype yet or just designed it?

thats twisted!!!

You sure like to make something as simple as surfing very complicated.

It's no wonder it's hard for you when your approach it like a science project.

Surfing is about feeling part of nature and the wave plus stoke, not science.

hmmmm good idea, I suppose, but the only way to practice is to get wet.

The Idea is that it measures the weight on each corner over a period of time whilst the surfer can practice a pop-up, this saves having to swim out and catch a wave every time you want to practice.

Why would you NOT want to paddle out and catch a wave every time you want to practice? cos thats what its all about. If you wanna learn to swim youve just got to jump in the water! Paddle out, catch waves, take beatings.

You're never going to learn anything about surfing from a computer simulator

just another thought, to accurately measure the force on each corner; you'd have to program it to mimic different types/heights/power of waves, and depending whether you were taking off on the peak, or on the shoulder; and what type of board you were riding.