Technical Problem Statement:
Conventional climbing and recovery equipment, such as ice axes, are dangerous and impractical for use by skiers due to the sharp fixed blade. Our project aims to address safety concerns by proposing a retractable ice axe that mechanically attaches to a ski pole, offering a safer and more user-friendly alternative.
Freezing Conditions
A prominent challenge that our Retractable Ice Axe faces, particularly towards the final stages of our plan, pertains to the testing phase. Our location in Houston, where winter temperatures can reach as high as 80 degrees, presents a significant inconvenience for evaluating the device's performance under freezing conditions. Although this is a challenge, as a group we fund a solution, our plan is to spray water on the deployment mechanism and then freeze our device. This will allow us to test whether our device can still deploy within 1 second or less even under freezing conditions. We will also mimic snowy conditions by creating fake snow to make sure our device can work perfectly in snowy/wet conditions. The final test we will perform on our device will be taking it on an actual ski trip. Our outdoor enthusiast and skier, Huzefa Raja, will cautiously test the device during skiing slides with caution to fully test whether our device is fully functional.
Under 2 kg
A critical challenge we face is maintaining the device's weight under 2 kg. This is of utmost importance, as skiers wouldn't want to add 2 kg when using their ski poles.
Withstand 150 kg
Our device must be able to withstand the load of 150 kg in order for it to be usable in practice. 150 kg is an ideal goal, since it is roughly twice the weight of a large adult male.
Soft Challenges
There are two key soft challenges that we need to consider when creating this device. The first challenge is to try to keep the ski pole handle as ergonomic as possible, to ensure comfort during long skiing and hiking sessions. This includes considering how the user will interact with the device with gloves and cold hands. Additionally, another challenge we face is ensuring that our ski pole is as easy and convenient to use as normal ski poles. This means we have to take into account the weight of the device, the center of gravity, and as mentioned earlier, the ergonomics.
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