Motorized SnoDeck shreds through the snow

You may have a hard time pulling off an ollie with it, but this so-called SnoDeck developed by a group of students at the University of Waterloo looks like it could at least provide a suitable alternative to snowboarding for those that don't feel like trekking up a hill all the time. Relying on some electric drill motors to move it along, the deck apparently has a turning radius of two meters, and a kill switch to prevent it from taking out by-standers when the rider falls off. Of course, this being a student project you'll have to be content with admiring it from afar for the time being, which you can do by hitting up the video after the break.

[Via MAKE:Blog]

[V.I. @ Apr 14th 2007 5:39AM]

Pretty decent invention. I wonder how it does on sand?

[Ashley @ Apr 14th 2007 6:30AM]

Proberly...

...Although, trust me, you wouldnt want to try this on dry sand....it hurts if you fall off!!!!

My skin was a mess when I was diving down 20ft dune hills! :P

[HEADsoldier07 @ Apr 14th 2007 9:48AM]

well that sure beats a ski lift.

[Galley @ Apr 14th 2007 9:57AM]

The SnoDeck truly is "the epitome of excitement".

[Brad @ Apr 14th 2007 11:40AM]

I go to Waterloo for Systems Design Engineering and saw this at the exhibition, it works pretty sweet but like most things electronic the limitation were its batteries.

This was one of the 'cool-er' items at the show. The best was my buddy's www.waterloospeed.com

[exelsior @ Apr 14th 2007 11:49AM]

There's no need to post your UW propaganda here, Brad.

[Grant @ Apr 14th 2007 1:40PM]

no offense dude,
but theres no way redesigning an ECU is cooler than putting snow tread on a skateboard.
gear heads work every day to figure out how to mod/improve current car parts, even if they manage to make the most powerful/effcient, if it's not cost efficient, it won't matter.

SnoDeck on the other hand could make a pretty cool consumer good.

[Brad @ Apr 14th 2007 11:54AM]

Propaganda? Huh, I'm just saying for 3rd/4th year projects some were better than others. Another cool one was one that digitally mapped out a pool table and analysed it.

Or wait, do you come from a crappier University like Lakehead?

[exelsior @ Apr 14th 2007 11:56AM]

I come from a crappy university like University of Waterloo.

[blax @ Apr 14th 2007 4:38PM]

I sure hope you were joking, UW is one of the top engineering schools in the world.

This reminds me a bit of the segway skateboard that some engineering students at UBC made: http://www.ebikes.ca/projects/Emanual/index.shtml

[Señor Ninja-Meister @ Apr 14th 2007 2:08PM]

Agreed, Grant. Getting around NYC is a bitch in the winter because you can't ride your bike in the snow. I would totally use one of these.

[exelsior @ Apr 14th 2007 4:44PM]

UW is sooo overrated and can't touch the schools in the U.S. (think MIT, Stanford, Perdue, UCLA, Harvard, and Princeton).

I don't really know what the hell you're talking about.

[Juaquin @ Apr 14th 2007 6:06PM]

Thanks for the compliment, exelsior. I'm an engineering student at UCLA.

This looks pretty cool, but the one flaw I see is that they need some better motors. It's too slow to look like much fun to me. Add better motors and a bigger battery (to power the bigger motor) and they've got themselves a great product.

The ECU thing looks interesting, but it's nothing extremely innovative. The company Jet will take existing ECU's and flash them to your specifications. The ability to do it yourself would be nice, but it's not a stretch.

[Zack W. @ Apr 14th 2007 5:28PM]

i wonder if putting on of those treads on each foot would work too...

[Bob @ Apr 14th 2007 6:34PM]

As an engineering student, I think this is more interesting than a custom ECU for a Jetta. People have already hacked everything they want out of these ECUs, and it this is not very useful or innovative.

Also, UW is a good school, but I'd have to agree with exelsior on this one. I myself was accepted to Waterloo, but decided to go to a different school.

[djp123 @ Apr 15th 2007 6:13AM]

UW is actually a pretty damn good engineering school.

Also the poster that adduced Harvard in an argument about engineering without mentioning CMU first is clearly just ignorant and name dropping.

Anyhoo they need to soup that thing up because it reminds me of the Barbie pink corvette Power Wheel my sister had when she was 4.

[Team SnoDeck @ Apr 15th 2007 11:03AM]

Sooo...about that SnoDeck...
If anyone has any questions or inquiries, you can reach the SnoDeck Team at: [e-mail]
Thanks for the interest!

[sfras @ Apr 15th 2007 3:19PM]

Hope you guys got a patend on that, good idea. You should think of producing them, but deff do some R&D needs some speed, maybe trucks to?

[kevink @ Apr 15th 2007 7:23PM]

Go to Purdue, maybe you'll learn something.

[malcolm @ Oct 18th 2008 2:41PM]

can you tell us how to make one of these, I want one!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[mstar @ Nov 2nd 2008 4:02PM]

i want one, can you post instructions on how to build one