Aalto University
School of Engineering
Mechanical Engineering programme
Mobile surfing platform: conceptual design and prototyping
Master thesis project plan
5.2.2012
Pauli Immonen
Introduction
Surfing in Finland is quite a challenge. During winters lakes and seas freeze and during summer it is quite exceptional to find suitable waves for surfing. Letting the water flow carry you gives you such a unique experience that there might be a genuine demand to create this setting artificially thus bringing this intriguing activity to everybody’s reach.
The aim of this thesis will be to perform an academic study on theories involving surfing, on basics of mechanical engineering as needed in this project and on suitable product development methods. Furthermore the ultimate goal will be to utilize the knowledge gathered in order to create functioning, possibly profitable prototype of a product which generates surfing experience where ever it is needed. The thesis will have two distinctive sections, first of which will focus on studying theoretical background of the subject and the second will describe the performed product development process and prototyping.
Surfing is thousands of years old form of leisure activity. It does not require too much equipment; one just needs to have a suitable board and of course to find the waves to ride on. The first challenge mentioned can easily be tackled, but finding the waves especially in certain geographical areas can be impossible to overcome. Therefore suitable surfing places can be hard to reach for many enthusiasts. It can require traveling long distances for quite long periods of time. That can create major costs and hinder the interest towards the sport.
It is reasonable to expect that for instance in Finland there would be plenty more people surfing if it could be done with small effort almost at home. That is the demand, the product of this project attempts to fulfill. Target is to provide a possibility for people to try surfing in some form and for the enthusiast to exercise their sport. It does not have to be an exact simulation of the surfing at this stage, but it must create a similar kind of experience using the basics of surfing.
The product of this project could be installed into some place people are already having fun and spending their free time. Such sites include amusement parks and festival areas. There are plenty on people in right set of mind in order to try something totally new to them and will not mind if they happen to get wet in the process. The simulator can also be included into some publicity campaign to attract the attention of the consumers. It could be impossible to start a totally new consumer-business solely around this product. Instead it could bring added value to the surroundings mentioned earlier.
The study will be performed under guidance of Atso Andersen who is the Head of Corporate Relations at Aalto University and Professor Kalevi Ekman. Design Factory of Aalto University will provide the needed resources and possess the actual products of this project.
Thesis Purpose
The purpose of the thesis is twofold: gathering information to understand the requirements on developing a mobile artificial surfing environment and describing the actual designing process that will be performed during this study. The second purpose of the project is to manufacture a fully functioning prototype of a mobile surfing simulator using the resources available. Thus the ultimate purpose is to provide a product that is as finalized as possible in given frames and can actually be put to use in some form.
Research Questions
There are many questions that have to be answered in order to reach the goal set earlier. The most important ones are listed below and it is well expected that new ones will rise during the actual study.
· What is the physical basis on surfing?
· Who are the possible users of this product and what are their demands on it?
· What are the key-elements in creating the surfing experience?
· What kind of equipment is needed to make artificial surfing possible?
· What kinds of similar products and technologies exist?
· Are there any patents that could be used in this product or that limit the possibilities building it?
· What are the safety regulations this product should meet?
· What kind of design provides the best safety so that anyone can use it without any risk of injury?
· What kind of configuration is suitable for this particular project to implement?
· What are the best materials for different parts of the build?
· How the needed structures can be build?
· How the equipment needed can be struck, transported and re-built efficiently?
· Which product development methods should be used in designing an artificial surfing environment using quite limited resources?
· What kinds of sub-features a user-friendly and profitable surfing simulator should have?
· Is there an actual demand for this kind of equipment in Finnish markets? How about outside Finland?
Thesis Objectives
There are basically two levels of success in this thesis study. The absolute minimum is described in primary goals. Still to be successful this project has to reach the secondary goals in some extent at least. There are some variables that will affect the actual outcome and that need to be fixed during the project.
Primary Goals
The primary goal of this thesis is to gather all the information that is needed to develop a mobile surfing simulator. All the essential aspects have to be concerned so that building a profitable product would be possible based on this study.
The thesis should give answers to all the questions research questions described earlier. The key-findings are expected to come from safety and mobility. After those goals are reached, the focus will be in refining the product so that it will generate the ultimate user experience and therefore be the ultimate surfing platform. Many other questions have probably more or less already been studied in some extent.
The thesis should combine the gathered information into one design of an actual product and describe it in detail.
Secondary Goals
The secondary object is to utilize the knowledge ant to build as good prototype as possible using the available resources. It is possible that the actual prototype will differ from the optimal design described in the thesis. Shortage of time and lack of funding can affect this dramatically. As mentioned, this goal is almost a primary goal in this project since something tangible is needed.
If there is sufficient time, the thesis will include testing of the concept and the prototype. It would be good, if some initial market researches could be carried and user-opinions on the products gathered. The success of this relies on several uncertainties that it cannot be set as an essential goal of this study.
If possible, the thesis should suggest, what should be done next. Some suggestion on further development could be presented and the most promising left-out concepts could be roughly described. If it happens that the prototyping is not successful at all, this goal will actually be a primary goal.
Unique Contribution
Artificial surfing is not something that has not been done yet. There are some solutions available at the global markets; some of them are actually Finnish products. What has not been done is to make it mobile in a manner that it can be set up easily in different locations. That is something that this thesis will be the first one to present.
It is possible that there is not any academic research on artificial surfing. All the existing solutions are either some do-it-yourself projects or some industrial builds that might not be published in detail. This thesis will present the knowledge on the issue in systematic and scientific manner.
Study Methodology
The study will implement two different approaches on the design challenge. The first part describing the theoretical background will be executed based on literature and database studies. These studies will provide the needed information for calculation as well as information about already existing solutions.
Since the group in this development project is quite small, the choices considering the development methods used will be done in the group meetings and their theoretical background is described based on literature. At early stage it is not possible to predict these methods.
The second part; utilizing the theories in order to generate the product, will use actual product development methods. The aim is to interview people from different interest groups in order to generate the requirement list for the product. The basic mechanical design will base on traditional engineering guidelines to provide the needed configuration and sizing. As mentioned the product development methods for conceptual design will be chosen during the process since they depend on the available human and financial resources. The results and the processes will be described in suitable detail.
Work Breakdown Structure
In this chapter is presented the key elements of the thesis work. Since the project frame is not totally fixed, there will possibly be some changes in the work structure during to project.
· First phase – gathering the knowledge
o Literature study involving the mechanics of surfing
o Studying at least the patent databases for similar solutions
o Searching the material supporting the topic from internet
o Contacting the manufacturer of similar products
§ Getting the big picture of the branch
§ Finding out the main challenges and solutions if possible
§ Collecting information about user experience
o Contacting and interviewing surfing experts (online and in person)
o Documenting the gathered information (theory part of the thesis)
· Second phase – conceptual design
o Defining requirements
o Concept planning
§ Determining problems
§ Finding alternative solutions
§ Evaluating different solution
· Functionality
· Usability
· User experience
· Safety
· Reliability
· Costs
· Profitability
o Narrowing down the alternatives
o Rapid prototyping
o Repeating the earlier steps as necessary
o Modeling (for functional studies and marketing purposes)
o Marketing material for fund raising (as early as possible)
o Designing optional functions into the product
o Determining roughly the best configuration
o Sizing the construction
o CAD (computer aided design) and simulating
o Documenting the results (conceptual design part of the thesis)
· Third phase – building the prototype
o Determining the prototype design (if not the best configuration)
o Acquiring the needed components
§ Second-hand markets
§ Sponsorships
o Making the needed adjustments if some limitations arise
o Getting the needed laborers
o Building
o Testing and adjusting
o Documenting the building process (prototyping part of the thesis)
· Fourth phase – finalizing and wrap-up
o User studies if possible
o Final adjustments to the prototype
o Finalizing the documentation
Time Schedule
The time-frame for this project is six months. The different phases will at least partly overlap. In order to ensure that the project is finished on time, some key steps has to be completed as follows
· Phase 1 should be finalized until the end of February
· Phase 2 starts side-by-side with phase 1 and should be finalized until the end of May
· Phase 3 should start as soon as possible, probably at the end of February. There are some key elements that can be bought in advance such as the power equipment. The actual building has to start at the beginning of June at the latest.
· Some kind of tangible model should be constructed until the end of March at the latest
· CAD including possible simulations should be done until the end of April
Communication
It is crucial to have excellent communication channels to the interest groups, as this project aims to create an actual product and the funding needed has to be gathered during the project. Therefore periodical reporting only to the guiding group is not adequate.
To support the project a blog called wavecontainer.blogspot.com has been created. It is going to be the databank introducing the progress of the project and also the findings and notes around the subject.
To support the information distribution, suitable internet communication channels have to be utilized. They can be for example a Facebook group/page for the project and an internet site. The decision on these will be done as the project has been started.
The language used in publications will be either Finnish or English. The thesis work will be written in Finnish and therefore the most of the documentation will be done also in Finnish. The messaging in internet forums and the presentation material will be done in English as suitable. The aim is that also the non-Finnish-speaking people can get the basic knowledge about the project.
Thesis Organization
The supevisor:
Atso Andersén
Head of Corporate Relations at Aalto University
atso.andersen@aalto.fi
+358 50 566 9982
The employer representative
Kalevi Ekman
Professor of Integrated Product Development at Aalto University
kalevi.ekman@aalto.fi
+358 50 555 3566
Thesis worker
Pauli Immonen
Research assistant at Aalto Design Factory
pauli.immonen@aalto.fi
+358 50 561 2882
Risks
The key risks in this thesis project are listed below
| Risk | Probability | Effect | Risk Index | Ways to avoid and to adapt |
| Time runs out | 2 | 3 | 6 | The goals have to be kept simple. “Quick and dirty” approach, keeping the focus on moving forward. |
| Lack of funding | 3 | 3 | 9 | Making the model adaptive. Providing the needed resources for marketing at earliest stage possible. |
| Not enough information is found | 1 | 4 | 4 | Utilizing the right connections. “If you don’t know, ask” |
| Conceptual planning fails | 1 | 3 | 3 | Systematic approach on design process, continuous brainwork, working in inspirational environment. |
| Not enough labor is available | 2 | 3 | 6 | Supporting fund raising and making the model down scalable. |
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