UW-Madison Senior Design project - ski rope winder

[ski_uw]

Hello,

 

We are a group of students at the University of Wisconsin - Madison. For our mechanical engineering senior design project, we are creating a new product that will make ski rope retrieval, storage, and deployment easier, faster, and more organized. This device will minimize effort needed to retrieve the rope while reducing the chance of knots and entanglement.

 

We need some feedback regarding interest in the product and to help guide some design aspects. We would really appreciate it if you could take a minute to fill out the following survey:

 

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1a2oh__JuKcKitOvrDuAnpFWXyslsURxZgN0uet6B6JY/viewform

 

Please feel free to comment below with any questions or features that you would like to see incorporated.

 

Thanks,

Ski_UW

[MattP]

Completed the survey. I added some of my comments to the end. It awesome to see other college students taking their passion and applying it to their work!

[ski_uw]

Thanks! We really appreciate it.

[ral]

Completed it too.

[HPskier1]

Completed it

[rq0013]

Im a uw alumni team member- great project. ps keep my sis in line

[Shortenit]

Happy to provide input.

[SkiJay]

I participated and I'm curiuos to see what you come up with, but I must say that I kind of like retrieving the rope manually and tying it up all nice and tidy at the end of a set. It's part of the ritual.

[teammalibu]

I dont have any problem winding my rope you should put your minds to work on safer bindings

[mlange]

I took the quiz as well, but to be honest I'm with @SkiJay. I enjoy it to some extent as well.

 

Mike

[Edbrazil]

Amen to the post about bindings. Question: would this be a product that would just be used for line storage and transport, or would it be designed to be used during skiing? As in being able to wind in towline shortenings without stopping the boat?

There was a product like this used in a Masters tournament from back in the 1960's, with pictures in an old Water Skier. I wasn't there. But the inventor did try to keep up with the product, and I may have met him many years later. I've put out an inquiry to some oldtime officials to see what they might have for information.

Meanwhile, if it's just going to be a device for winding and storing lines, we have this:

 

 

[BlueSki]

If they came up with a solution that allowed for line length to be set as easily as Zero Off sets speed, that might be compelling.

[MattP]

@Edbrazil I have heard of a boat in Okee that has a wench or something under the pylon that can be used to shorten the rope.

[grab2go]

In the 60's my dad had some spring loaded reels that slid into some brackets that were screwed onto the boat. We had two, one mounted on the transom on either side of the outboard. They worked great for pulling kids. They would wind up 2 75' ropes in a couple of seconds. Anyone else remember seeing those?

[mwetskier]

@BlueSki -we have a friend who skied tournaments in the 70's and he says there was at least one tournament that used a winch in the boat to shorten the rope between passes and the rope just had line length marks instead of loops. so was no drop at the end just loop around while the rope was being shortened so a skiers set would be non stop until he missed or fell. supposedly the skiers hated it and it went away pretty quick i would bet @Edbrazil might remember if this really happened.

[slalomkenny]

I kind of agree that winding ropes isn't that big of an issue that needs solving or removing the manual element of. If you are open to any other ideas, I am a mechanical engineer myself and I have thought in the past that a really cool idea to work on woud be the development of a safe and reliable failsafe release mechanism. The point of this device would be that in a world where tricking is seemingly becoming less and less prevalent, you can practice toes as a beginner or advanced skier that does not have a reliable pinner and you want to ensure that if you are pinned too late on an edge catch etc that you will be released. I say this as someone who witnessed someone get dragged this summer because an inexperienced pinner unknowingly slide the rope on the wrong side of the knot.

[A_B]

Isn't that something that the rookies in the boat do when you are finished skiing?

[Waternut]

I'll be sure to check out the survey when I get home and can pull it up. I do find it funny that in 16 years I've never figured out how to reel in a rope neatly. The more I try to bring the rope in properly, the more knots and tangles I get. Yet, if I bring the rope in and drop it at my feet, then grab it all, and chuck it under a seat in a jumbled mess of crap, it always comes out. Go figure... The downside is, it takes up more space and if I want a rope that's not the rope on top, it's more difficult.

[crashman]

I could envision something that sits on the floor of the boat that holds the coils as you pull it in- kind of like they use on deadliest catch but much smaller. I don't care what the rope looks like or where it is as long as it doesn't knot up when I get in- especially when it's cold.

[DW]

Completed the survey, good luck with the project and keep us up to date. Probably an ideal project for the show skier crowd rather than the single skier gang more prevalent on this site.

[Chef23]

When we ski we usually only have one rope in the boat and it isn't a problem getting it coiled up. It isn't something I would pay a lot for unless it made things real simple.

[chris_logan]

@ski_uw Filled it out...and added some idea based commentary at the end. Hope you guys come up with something cool! I think you guys could use BOS as your most valuable asset in the project for getting advice and ideas to make the most of it.

[Waternut]

Filled it out on my phone... I don't know about everyone else but even an intermediate winder that could pull in the rope quickly, easily, and neatly when switching skiers would be great. I do that a whole lot more than I put the rope away at the end of the day.

 

I didn't think of this when I filled out the survey but a fairly small, handheld, battery powered, winch that could reel in the rope between sets without having 60 ft of rope laying all over ski's, vests, gloves, etc. would be awesome.

[ToddL]

Twist can eventually ruin a good mic or speaker cable. I've seen top-level skiers meticulously ensure that their rope has no twists prior to starting their ski set. Makes sense as each twist in a cable puts stress on it and shortens its overall length a little. Certain methods of wrapping or coiling ropes/cables will create twists...

 

The audio industry promotes this method for coiling cables and avoiding tangles and twists.

 

Corny Video, but easy to see the method...

 

Another explanation of "Over/under" (Jump to 1:18 to skip the talking at the beginning):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-74OEVUOKOw&feature=player_detailpage#t=78

 

Here is another method known as the parachute knot:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPWVXSk-yaw

 

 

 

 

[E_T]

Ist there already a product on the market that already does this? http://www.wakeboardingmag.com/product-spotlight/2006/02/14/ropewinder/

 

[gator1]

@mattp surely you mean "winch"? However, if they do indeed have a wench under the pylon to tend their rope, please post pics.

[ski_uw]

You guys are awesome! We already have a ton of input.

 

For the most part, we do agree that wrapping a rope by hand isn't much of a chore but we thought this would be a cool project nonetheless. We have taken a look at some of the similar products, from simple winders to the adjustable tower winches, and we have some ideas to differentiate our winder.

 

The project is still early in development, and this input is very valuable. We will try to keep you updated!

[jipster43]

@ToddL stole my thunder. If you could design a rope retrieval mechanism that unwinds twists in the rope, you'd really have something!

[BraceMaker]

My big ideas for you.

 

1 - where the water ends up. I hate how wet the carpet gets if you haul in the rope into the back of the boat.

 

2 - UV degredation of lines. Ropes are expensive, my usual reason for retiring a rope is that it is faded or frayed.

 

Any mechanism that both contains water, allows the lines to dry, and protects them from UV light would be a big plus.

[Edbrazil]

Thanks to the folks at USAWaterski and the AWSEF Museum, they rounded up some pictures for me. The first one is like the device I remember, although not exactly the same as what I remember from the pictures of the Masters in the Water Skier.

 

Back in the mid-late 1970's, we would have a kitchen-size wastebasket behind the driver seat (13 gallon or so), and the Boat Judge would pull the towline in hand-over-hand. Almost always came out cleanly without tangles. Not so practical now, with handle changing and even most skiers in some jump events having their own lines.

 

Some US Patents that may be of interest:

2915259 3100606 3420466

 

[A_B]

Twists cause springiness and Ed Brazil might shed some light on old pros twisting ropes to get more spring and less stress on elbows.

 

We use long loops and drop on floor with the end clearly away from the pile so it doesn't go through a loop and cause a knot. Shorter loops seemed to twist more.