Skateboarding – A Physics and Materials Science Story

It is difficult to define the precise moment at which skateboarding began. However, the rise of skateboarding as a pastime was, in some sense, inevitable. Wheels are all around us, and it was only a matter of time before kids built the first rudimentary skateboards using readily accessible parts of roller skates, etc. However, the performance of these first skateboards was extremely limiting, and often made it difficult to simply ride down a hill. How, then, did skateboarding rise from the sidewalks to become an Olympic sport? The answer to this question is a surprising mix of physics, materials science, teenage rebelliousness and a well-timed drought in southern California.



In this talk we will apply Newton’s Laws to analyze the sport of skateboarding. We will analyze the forces experience by the board and the rider while skating in bowls, ramps and on the street. We will show that skateboarders often experience large g-forces both while riding and “slamming.” A theory for how one “pumps” a skateboard ramp or a pool is introduced, and shown to be consistent with measurements obtained using a standard cell phone. We will show how tricks that seem to defy the laws of physics are instead completely consistent with these laws and, indeed, reveal the considerable physics intuition of the skateboarders preforming them. We will discuss the materials used for wheels, and explore the design constraints that led to the modern polyurethane skateboard wheel.