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Budget 25
Where’s the most dangerous place a parent could imagine their kids to be – swimming in a pool of sharks, suspended above a volcano or on a trampoline in their own backyard? Thankfully University of Canterbury professor Dr Keith Alexander has made at least the latter safer by inventing the Springfree Trampoline. In 1987 Alexander’s wife wouldn’t get a trampoline for their kids because of the danger of snapping limbs. Being a good father and a curious engineer he saw this as an engineering challenge, and set about improving the tramp. It turned out to be harder than expected, so he enlisted the help of his graduate students. Fifteen years later the Spring- free Trampoline was a reality.
The final design uses fibreglass-reinforced plastic rods instead of those nasty old springs. The rods are placed diagonally from the metal frame and support the mat from beneath so that anyone bouncing on it can’t land between the springs and hit the frame – no more chipped teeth! It’s unclear whether this also solves the old ‘static shock when dismounting on a hot day’ problem.
As well as safer, they’re still just as bouncy – test trampolines are subjected to three million bounces, simulating 10 years of usage. And good bouncing also makes for good business – the Springfree Trampoline has become a successful Kiwi invention and an internationally sound business proposition, selling in large volumes in Australia, Europe and the United States. Set up as a commercial venture with the help of the university’s commercialising division, they manufacture a number of the components in New Zealand: the rods are extruded in Gisborne and sent to China for assembly.
Demand for over 40,000 units a year has meant their Chinese manufacturing facility has had to open a second factory. It took a lot of work and a few risks to make the trampoline a commercially sound proposition, including a substantial amount of personal invest- ment: over $250,000 on intellectual property protection alone. Initially, no one wanted to support the idea and Alexander was forced to work with offshore investment until the university agreed to help back him.
Alexander still consults for the company he helped set up, but has kept his university day job. He has a few other ideas brewing where he sees an engineering mindset can be applied to a common problem. Who knows, next he may solve the issue of the killer swingball.
Jon Bridges and David Downs
Sat, 04 Oct 2014
Sat, 04 Oct 2014
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