What about design?

[Ice-boX]

Hi everyone! my name is Sinan,im from Turkey nd im an industrial design student in the university of politecnico di milano, this semester we ve been assigned to do a project about olympic sports nd me nd my team mates ve decided to do a project about Fencing,

What i'd like to know is the problems u have with your fencing equipment, it can be anything, masks,swords,shoes,problems uve had with new products,materials,sweating anything wld work.

Thank you for your interest nd sorry about grammar mistakes ive done :P

Sinan Atay

[freerider258]

my epee tip screws fall out and my weapon doesn't pass shims. a problem that frustrates me grrrr

[Ice-boX]

Originally Posted by freerider258

my epee tip screws fall out and my weapon doesn't pass shims. a problem that frustrates me grrrr

whos product is it? can u give me more detailed info?

[PeterGustafsson]

Hi!


Have you contacted the Turkish Fencing Federation?

TURKEY (TUR)

Turkiye Eskrim Federasyonu
Emek Ishani A Blok, Kat 8
06550 ULUS/ANKARA
Phone :+90 312 310 66 92
Fax :+90 312 311 72 47
E-mail :tef@eskrim.org.tr
URL :http://www.eskrim.org.tr

They should be able to point you to local resources/people, and translate specific terms.

Last year (10-18 April 2007) the Youth and cadet World Championships were held in Belek in Turkey. Contact the closest club, and you will get lots of ideas and leads!


Have a nice time!

Peter Gustafsson

[rdg]

May I suggest something that measures the actual force on a contact spring before the light goes off.

The limits are known: i.e., 750 g. for epee, foil I think is 500 g.

Here is the problem: No one actually knows the true pressure required on their specific weapon to close (or open in foil) the circuit. So, for example, an epee that requires 710 g. to open will offer a slight advantage over on that requires 860 g. Hence the need for an accurate measurement.

This seems like a good, simple project with a little math and a little circuitry, and one that would be very useful if the design were small and portable.

By the way, I applaud your English. It is very readable and understandable.

Finally, please let f.net know what you choose and how you did your work.

Sam

[freerider258]

Originally Posted by Ice-boX

whos product is it? can u give me more detailed info?

it's really not a "brand" issue, it's probably my neglegence of epee maintainance. I always flick the floor with my tip for practice, probably not a great idea, but yes the tips get loose and the tip screws do fall out from basic wear on the weapon

[fencerX]

Originally Posted by PeterGustafsson

Hi!

Have you contacted the Turkish Fencing Federation?

TURKEY (TUR)

Have you considered that the poster and his teammates are in Italy?

[HDG]

Originally Posted by fencerX

Have you considered that the poster and his teammates are in Italy?

Since when is Milan in Italy?

[fencerX]

Originally Posted by Ice-boX

Hi everyone! my name is Sinan,im from Turkey nd im an industrial design student in the university of politecnico di milano, this semester we ve been assigned to do a project about olympic sports nd me nd my team mates ve decided to do a project about Fencing,

What i'd like to know is the problems u have with your fencing equipment, it can be anything, masks,swords,shoes,problems uve had with new products,materials,sweating anything wld work.

If you read through the threads in the Armory section of this site, you might find some ideas on problems people would like to see solved.

Some examples:

The FIE is discussing changing the target in foil to include the bib. What could be done for old masks?

Can someone design a cheaper, lighter conductive piste?

How can visor masks be safety checked in the field?

What sort of bag can be designed to carry fencing gear that will comply with airlines' size and weight limits?

Can someone design a useful and low-cost video replay system for clubs? Or a mask video camera system?

Why don't scoring boxes/pistes have a simple device that alerts when the piste is not grounded along its entire length?

What could be designed to better secure scoring reels or pistes to gym or convention center floors on a temporary basis?

[Ice-boX]

First of all i'd like to thank you all for your interest,

The thing is,since we are designers but not engineers mechanical problems might be a little bit hard for us to solve (like rdg's idea) in 3-4 months,however FencerX's bag idea was pretty useful nd gave us an inspiration.

What about the masks btw? i checked the info on the net nd it seems pretty complicated nd also hard to do the adjustment for your head size,cld you give me more info about this problem please? nd ofc if u have anythng else to say about the masks.

Sinan Atay

[PeterGustafsson]

Hi!

Originally Posted by fencerX

Have you considered that the poster and his teammates are in Italy?

If you reread the threadstart below, you should notice that fencing guidance in Turkish is probably useful to him.

Originally Posted by Ice-boX

Hi everyone! my name is Sinan,im from Turkey
<snip>

Thank you for your interest nd sorry about grammar mistakes ive done :P

Sinan Atay

Have a nice time!

Peter Gustafsson

[PeterGustafsson]

Hi!

Originally Posted by rdg

May I suggest something that measures the actual force on a contact spring before the light goes off.

The limits are known: i.e., 750 g. for epee, foil I think is 500 g.

Here is the problem: No one actually knows the true pressure required on their specific weapon to close (or open in foil) the circuit. So, for example, an epee that requires 710 g. to open will offer a slight advantage over on that requires 860 g. Hence the need for an accurate measurement.

An idea: a somewhat smaller test weight, only this time weighing 700 g and with a stem sticking out vertically from the top of the weight. On the stem, put washer-like small weight. Have a set of 2 50g, 4 10g, and 9 1g weights, and you can measure with an resolution of 1 gram up to 849 g. No batteries, electronics, moving parts that can go wrong.


Sinan - if this is good enough for your project: Do feel free to copy the idea, but if you do so please credit me in some way in the acknowledgments of your report

[Ice-boX]

Originally Posted by PeterGustafsson

Hi!




An idea: a somewhat smaller test weight, only this time weighing 700 g and with a stem sticking out vertically from the top of the weight. On the stem, put washer-like small weight. Have a set of 2 50g, 4 10g, and 9 1g weights, and you can measure with an resolution of 1 gram up to 849 g. No batteries, electronics, moving parts that can go wrong.


Sinan - if this is good enough for your project: Do feel free to copy the idea, but if you do so please credit me in some way in the acknowledgments of your report

Thank you Peter for your reccomandation we definetely r gonna take this in consideration.
We've decided to work on the gloves and the mask btw im gonna let u guys know what ideas we ve come up with,i wld really appreciate it if u cld make some comments on them when we r done.

[AdamH]

Hi Sinan,

Two problems that bother my clubmates and myself, both relate to foil fencing.

Problem 1:

When I get very sweaty after fencing for a while or running to have a cigarette, my mask ends up becoming conductive. As the valid target area should only be the lame (the silvery vest I wear over my jacket) this can put me at quite a disadvantage.

Problem 2:

When I get very sweaty after fencing for a while or running to have a cigarette, my foil sometimes begins to exhibit interesting properties. If my glove is also especially sweaty and enough salt has built up then on-target hits to my opponent's lame (the silvery vest he wears over his jacket) cause nothing to be registered on the scoring box. Any hits to anything else will cause the usual off-target white light on the scoring box.

A combination of these two problems would be hitting my opponent's sweaty mask with my sweaty glove holding my foil and nothing happening on the scoring box.

Hope you choose one of these as your project.

Thanks,

Adam

[coerciveutopian]

As for designing the masks, one of the most annoying problems from the design perspective is the way they are fixed to the head. The elastic gets stretched out very quickly and velcro wears out leaving only the tongue to keep the mask on the head. Something could be done about that.

[rdg]

Keeping with the design theme. The history of masks is pretty interesting, at least to us fencers. So don't overlook the development to the current standard shape.

Secondly, this may be trivial, but cleaning is another issue we all face Putting your face into that sweaty, cold, wet thing after yesterday's total sweat drencing workout is nasty. A design that is easy to clean, perhaps with removable padding and machine washable pads, would be of interest.

Sam

[Ice-boX]

Originally Posted by rdg

Keeping with the design theme. The history of masks is pretty interesting, at least to us fencers. So don't overlook the development to the current standard shape.

Secondly, this may be trivial, but cleaning is another issue we all face Putting your face into that sweaty, cold, wet thing after yesterday's total sweat drencing workout is nasty. A design that is easy to clean, perhaps with removable padding and machine washable pads, would be of interest.

Sam

now thats what i call an opportunity for designers! thank u rdg nd coerciveutopian i think these r gonna be our main concern about the new mask..

we also have decided to do a gauntlet that can be used both wth pads or wthout pads wer gonna use a new nano tech tissue to let u use ur hand freely nd wthout any concerns..

3rd project is gonna be about the score board,since fencing needs some attention i guess wer gonna do some ambiental design aswell i really wld like to thank u all for ur advices gonna let u know about the results

nd ofc let me know if u have any advices about these 3

Sinan Atay

[nyacfencing]

Hi Sinan,

This biggest problem with my fencing equipment is that it's too expensive. Can you please design high-quality equipment that is lower in cost. I cannot imagine that anybody in this forum would argue against this change for the better

Thanks!

[edew]

Originally Posted by Ice-boX

Hi everyone! my name is Sinan,im from Turkey nd im an industrial design student in the university of politecnico di milano, this semester we ve been assigned to do a project about olympic sports nd me nd my team mates ve decided to do a project about Fencing,

What i'd like to know is the problems u have with your fencing equipment, it can be anything, masks,swords,shoes,problems uve had with new products,materials,sweating anything wld work.

Thank you for your interest nd sorry about grammar mistakes ive done :P

Sinan Atay

Here's a great design project: create an easy to set-up/easy to tear down grounded fencing strip that is light-weight, but won't move around on its own. Here are the design features one should have:

1) light weight so that two people can do the set-up
2) won't move around on the ground (carpet or concrete flooring) and doesn't need tape or other material to hold down
3) easy to stack away and store
4) electrically grounded (meaning that the fencing surface is metal or conductive in some way)
5) easily mass producible
6) easily transportable (which is part of the light-weight target)
7) easy to set-up and tear-down
8) won't break apart under normal to heavy use (lots of jumping, pushing and pulling, etc)
9) has relatively high tolerance for abuse (can't require millimeter accuracy of fit, otherwise a ding here or there will make the whole unit unusable).

Nice additions:
A) integrates with a scoring machine system
B) include a transporting system (box, rollers, whatever)
C) provide places for advertisement or sponsorship logos
Go for it!

[oiuyt]

I think EDew's suggestion of looking at the physical piste for design ideas is a good one.

Desideratum #3 "easy to stack away and store" should be generalized to merely "easy to store". Otherwise this is a good starting point.

Not that it can either be a single unit (foldable or rollable) or sections that are attached together in some form.

Adding some form of shock absorbtion could fit under either the required list or the additional list.

You can probably get a number of other useful suggestions for requirement specs with a quick thread here.

-B