Caledonia — Kenowa Hills STEM Academy conquers skateboards and paddleboards in the spring, but a third kind of board completes the Gone Boarding trifecta in the winter. Before the recent thaw, freshmen and sophomores took to the slopes at Cannonsburg and received lessons on how to stand, stop, go and turn on snowboards they made in class.
In its fourth year at Kenowa Hills, the project-based unit engages STEM students through the design and construction of skate-, long-, surf- and snowboards.
Designing the snowboards’ surfaces was only one step of a lengthy building process to build their boards from scratch, freshman Rayna Lobbezoo said.
“We had to cut out the core of the wood, sand it and bend metal edges around the outside and glue them on by hand,” she said. “We could either paint or use rice paper to decorate; then we put rubber edges on the sides of the core and used epoxy to put it all together.”
Students vacuum-sealed the near-complete boards before they were sent off to Cannonsburg’s ski shop to go through the stone grinder, get wax on the bottom and have foot bindings installed.
“It only took us three months and a lot of work, but we made it,” freshman Olivianna McWilliams said, relieved and excited to finally test out the snowboards on actual snow.
Applying Physics to Snowboarding
Throughout the building process, students learned about how the scientific concepts of friction apply to snowboarding.
“We learned mainly about slope friction, when you’re going downhill, and stationary friction,” sophomore Colton Rogaski explained. “When you’re straying to stand up on a flat surface, it’s hard to get the board moving. It’s easy to reverse the friction on a slope when you’re going forward downhill.”
Other factors influencing their boards’ friction: how well they waxed the bottom of their snowboards and if the weather cooperated to maintain Cannonsburg’s powdery hills.
Before they could shred the slopes at Cannonsburg, STEM teachers Steven Feutz and Jeremy Cusick said students had to learn basic skills and not fall out of their bindings — the part that holds their feet to the board — before they could start from the top of the hill.
“Keeping your weight on your front foot is key,” a staff instructor told the group of students. “Riding and steering in the front like riding a bike.”
Now in his third year in the STEM Academy, Colton said he’s feeling more confident about his board-building success rate.
“The whole thing was fun,” he said. “Attaching the metal edges was challenging, but I didn’t think it was going to fall apart in the end.”
Read more from Kenowa Hills:
• Game board showcase demonstrates fun of skill-building
• Testing out Newton’s laws of motion, with longboards
