SSP-2 is a versatile longtail downhill skateboard speed helmet designed for Diego Poncelet.
The helmet consists of two helmets shells: The outer is mainly for aerodynamics. A slightly smaller, more compact shell contains the EPS inner helmet. The helmet shape is to some extents driven by the curvature of the visor and the outside shape of the EPS inner.
In addition to body scans of the rider, a selection of helmets have been 3D scanned as reference and to compare new designs in CFD. We used Bramble, a well established computational fluid dynamics app to evaluate the designs at multiple speeds.
The most promising design was 3D printed as a positive mold and two negative mold halves were laminated. All carbon work has been done by Aaron Skippings in the UK.
Rhino and Grasshopper was used extensively throughout the whole design process. Shrinkwrapping was an essential tool to create watertight mesh files for CFD. The shells were modelled with SubD and constantly analysed with contours generated in Grasshopper.
The visor for the SSP helmets is provided by TSG. Obviously we need to trim the visor for our design. After spending a few hours measuring and drawing the outline on the first visor for SSP-1, a router jig was developed and 3D printed.
very nice project, i think you should implement maybe one of the images of the finished results from instagram here directly if possible if it does not infringe copy rights. i almost skipped that part till i found the link and voila!
a bit off topic
i always wonder which hardness they use for the wheels, i personally was driving a lot on 78 A on one of the small wooden ridge skateboards which sticks like super glue to the asphalt, they let you turn very hard but gliding into corner is practically impossible, too hard though and they will have zero grip so i am really curious what they use
The durometer of the wheels is somewhere in between 75 A and 85 A. There has been some development in the design of the cores. Modern wheels offer both immense grip but also reliable / consistent slides. A note on the boards and shoes. Most riders use high grip rubber, coarse griptape and some sort of blocks bolted to the top of the board to keep especially the front foot from sliding off the board. Some riders put wood screws into the board so they have spikes grabbing the shoes…
