An innovative solution
For the year project of CAD Lab course, we received from Roadrunnerfoot Engineering srl the proposal to develop a sitski for disabled people.
What is a sitski?
A sitski is a system that gives to people with legs diseases or even more complicated handicaps the possibility to enjoy the ski practice, both with the help of a ski teacher or not. It consists in an ergonomical seat and in an underlying frame, provided with a suspension system, that is linked to the ski(s). The rider moves laterally to turn and to carve.
There are mainly two different solutions in this field: monoskis and dualskis, that are respectively suited to be installed on only one, or two skis. Generally they are compatible with normal skis and ski bindings: we also made this choice.
Performance dualski
We thought to simulate as much as possible the behaviour of an able-bodied skier. Hence we decided to develop a two-skis system, with all the advantages of stability and ease of use that this choice provides, but at the same time upgrading it with an innovative independent suspension scheme and an extreme maximum tilting angle.
In our intention this should be of interest also for expert users.
From scratch!
Please notice that what you see here is a completely original product. We developed it from scratch, taking inspiration from competitors, but without any existing sketch or model; the components we DID NOT design are the two shock absorbers (mountain bike downhill FOX DHX), bearings and bolts.
The team
Fabrizio Stancher
Marco Vegetti
Saverio Zefelippo