YouTube channel Network A is a lover of all things X Games — snowboarding, skateboarding, BMX, you name it. For their video series Every Third Thursday, Signal Snowboards, known for cool and atypical board designs, created the first open source programmable snowboard that can change music depending on the snowboarder’s orientation.
The tinkerers wanted to make something a little more complicated than just slapping lights on a snowboard, mainly because they’d already conquered that challenge. With help from Matt Davis, a musician and programmer, the team began building a snowboard equipped with GPS, an accelerometer, rechargeable battery, and Bluetooth for communication with the required smartphone app.
Davis first worked on turning an iPhone into a wireless MIDI controller so they could get the sounds mapped with motion just the way they wanted. After that, they embedded all the tech into their own custom board and took it to the slopes. In the video, you can listen to the change in music as the board travels down the slope, grinding on rails, and performing other tricks.
At the five-minute clip’s conclusion, Davis brings up an interesting point: “Where’s the point where the art starts affecting your performance on the mountain? Are you trying to maximise your performance on the run or are you trying to make the coolest music possible? Then it kind of just blends together.”
All I know is that I want one. [Hackaday]