For my final year of Industrial Design I wanted to focus on a passion of mine which is motorbike riding, specifically motocross which is a sport where motorbike riders race around a track that is made from dirt and involves jumps, bumps and corners where riders jump as far was 20 meters and go speeds ranging from 20km/hr to 80km/hr. Motocross is unfortunately a very dangerous sport where injuries occur constantly and the injuries can range from broken fingers to life altering injuries like spinal cord damage. The brief of my design was to create a spinal protection device for motocross riders, the device had to be safe, functional and of course look good.
Current Armour
The initial stage involved doing sketches trying to find a bracing system that would look and good and also actually work. When it comes to bracing a person’s spine it was so hard to find the balance of a system that would brace the spine and not become this large piece of equipment that takes forever to put on and makes the user feel like a immovable robot. Example (left) this rider is wearing 3 different devices to protect himself, a neck brace, body armour and elbow pads, although everything he is wearing is quality and offer great protection this style of armour can be super restrictive.
Design inspiration
Throughout the history of motocross there has always been an emphasis on having the coolest gear with the right colours and style. It could be argued that the aesthetics of motorbike gear is almost more important than the functionality of it, a great example of this is the Thor SENTINEL, a chest protector that didn’t provide much protection than from small rocks but was possibly the most popular chest protector from 2007-2012 because of it’s style. for the motocross armour it was so important that the armour look great, the armour may function extremely well but if it does not look good then it will suffer.
Luckily I was able to contact professionals within the industry like Steven Gall a 5x Australia National Champion in Motocross who also works closely with CTI Knee Braces and Dr Peter Batchelor a clinical neurologist who is also part of the medical team that follows the Australian Motocross & Supercross series. These two professionals were able to give me insight into designs that could work and areas to focus on.
Force Absorption
I needed to find a way to absorb the impact from crashing on the user, the force that typically breaks someone’s spine is forces going into the head and down into the spine along with impacts directly to the spine via the back. I prototyped (right) a simplistic version where there would be a hard material and then a soft material to help reduce the force via the soft material.
liner
For the liner of the armour it had to be very form fitting, to do this I focused on using materials that are common within active wear industry like lycra and using bands of elastic to keep the liner tight.
Fastening
i needed a way to attach the armour to the user, typically this has been done with velcro straps and buckles which work fine, but are old methods and don’t always fit the best on the user. I decided to use boa, a ratchet like fastening system that uses a cable that goes around the armour and is tightened via a wheel on the armour.
Final Design
