Paul Schmitt has a curriculum he is trying to sell to schools. Kids apply math and vocabulary, and stuff they learned about trees by watching a video while designing and making a skateboard.
The program can work for kids from fifth to twelfth grade. If the school has industrial arts the kids can design and shape the board. If the school has no provision for woodworking they decorate and finish pre-cut blanks.
Schmitt had a skateboard company called Schmitt Stix. I had one of their boards, a Monty Nolder foam/fiberglass deck that was super light but cost me a bit of money at the time. These days he owns a big skateboard manufacturing company.
CreateASkate.org had a booth at the Dew Tour and John from Rebel Skates had me signed up. They showed us the video and went through a spiel about the program and what it is supposed to teach kids. Schmitt told us some interesting facts about how you can tweak your setup to improve ollie performance. I learned a few things about how the wood goes from forest to board and why we use hard maple in the first place. We figured out proper wheelbase for our height and designed a board shape. They had a variety of nose and tail shape templates we could trace. Each of us cut out, shaped, sanded and finished a deck. They had a band saw and power sanders for shaping and we did a lot of hand sanding. Paul Schmitt and his assistant Brian helped us out. The whole process took about 2.5 hours.
I am now the proud owner of a hammerhead-diamondtail-fish shape 8.5 x 32″ with a 15 inch wheelbase. Troy made a new freestyle board.
It was interesting and fun and It seems like a good way to teach kids the practical applications of some basic math concepts and connect an activity they are interested in with wider issues of sustainability and where things come from.
Typically a teacher or school principal might initiate the program but a kid or parent could also get their school to adopt the program by petitioning and fundraising. The CreateASkate.org website has more information. If the kids are into skateboarding, it’s a great program.
5 comments
Concretin
That is awesome.
nweyesk8
this is a way better idea than high school skateboard competition teams.
Liversnaps
Good stuff Mark. Figures Slit would make a freestyle board, lol.
Did you ever catch the film Stuntwood?
http://www.concretedisciples.com/cdarticles/cdarticles2.php?article=129
It basically follows the life and death of a skateboard. Schmitt goes into detail about how PS Stix creates really good boards.
t-roy
What’s wrong with making a freestyle board? Don’t worry, I haven’t freestyled in over 10 years. I wanted to make something unique, not just another hammerhead or fishtail, I could get that from Cold War. Paul said he hadn’t had anyone make a freestyle board before. The concave on the blanks is pretty extreme (I said extreme) so it should be interesting. It was challenging to design a board on the fly like that. Thanks to Mark for helping me barge in on it.
Kilwag
MC- where’s the pic of the board you made?