Digitally controlled variable stiffness sporting equipment
AssigneeVerispellis Skis & Snowboards, Inc.
InventorsAra Nazarian, Edward K. Rodriguez
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Abstract
A system, method, and apparatus for an athlete to variably control the flexibility and stiffness parameters of a piece of athletic equipment to select a desired performance characteristic of the equipment based on the stiffness parameter. According to certain embodiments discussed herein, an item of sporting equipment may be embedded, impregnated, lined, or encased using nitinol components, wherein the nitinol components may themselves be treated using a specific method in order to achieve the desired transformation results, as described below.
Claims20
A system comprising:
- an item body, the item body comprising a first end and a second end, and including a component formed of a thermally responsive material;
- a heating element proximate to the component of the item body to impart a phase change upon the thermally responsive material;
- and
- an input module comprising one or more processors to receive a user input that initiates the heating element and causes the heating element to impart the phase change upon the thermally responsive material based on a property of the user input.
A method for adjusting a property of an item of sporting equipment, comprising:
- receiving an input at an input component associated with the item of sporting equipment, the input comprising an input property;
- and
- causing a heating element to impart a phase change to a component formed of a thermally responsive material based on the input property of the input.
An apparatus comprising:
- an item body comprising a first end and a second end, and including a component formed of a thermally responsive material;
- a heating element proximate to the component of the item body to impart a phase change upon the thermally responsive material;
- and
- an input module to receive an input that initiates the heating element and causes the heating element to impart the phase change upon the thermally responsive material based on a property of the input.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.