Skate or Drive

Nov 13, 2023

Many people that grew up in the 1980s and 1990s were captivated by skateboarding as it gained more mainstream appeal. Athletes like Tony Hawk, Steve Caballero, and Christian Hosoi all gained widespread recognition for their innovative techniques and daring stunts during this era, and helped to popularize the sport. By 1995, the X Games were launched which brought skateboarding — and skateboarding culture — to a much wider audience.

This lead to a whole generation of kids wearing Vans shoes, playing Skate or Die! on their Nintendos, and spending their weekends at the skatepark to show off their own skills. Fast-forward 20-something years and those kids are all grown up, with jobs, families of their own, and houses in the suburbs. The Vans have been replaced by Oxfords, and if they mention an ollie or an Indy grab, it will only be met with copious yawning and rolling of eyes.

But these former skaters of a certain age know that they have still got it. If only they could just get back to the skatepark, it would be just like the old days. But then life gets in the way, and well, maybe next week will be when that former glory is restored. Kirk Kaiser, a software developer and tinkerer, came to the conclusion that this day might never come, so he instead set about bringing the skatepark to the suburbs — sort of, anyway.

As Kaiser was cruising around his neighborhood one night, with his dog pulling him on his skateboard, he got the itch to do some stunts. He started dreaming about how much fun it would be if ramps were sprinkled along the sidewalk, Paperboy style. And that was the genesis of his idea — certainly he could not get away with installing ramps all around the neighborhood, but he could build a remote-controlled skate ramp that follows him around to set up the perfect jump time and again.

The ramp itself is constructed mostly of plywood and a metal frame. BDLC motors were harvested from an electric skateboard to drive the ramp. After some initial testing that did not go so well, a linear actuator was included to allow for more precise steering than can be achieved by differentially rotating the wheels. An electric jack was also added at that point to allow the entire ramp to set fully down on the ground — the initial prototype stayed just a bit off the ground which made for some very concerning wobbling motions.

The powerful NVIDIA Jetson Nano single board computer was selected to serve as the primary processing unit, while a Teensy 3.2 microcontroller development board served to control the relays that triggered the linear actuator and electric jack. A Playstation 4 controller was used to drive the ramp and activate its various functions wirelessly via Bluetooth. Bluetooth does limit the range at which the ramp can be controlled pretty severely, so Kaiser does plan to install a proper radio controller on it in the future.

After some trial and error, and the lessons learned in the process, Kaiser ended up with a very cool remote-controlled skate ramp that was responsive and fairly easy to control. This is not the final vision he has for the project, however. Inspired by the NVIDIA JetRacer, a Jetson Nano powered self-driving car, he intends to make the ramp fully automated using computer vision and machine learning. After all, no one really wants to be driving the ramp around manually as they skate — the ideal end state would be for a custom skatepark to just materialize in your path as you go. With the NVIDIA Jetson Nano already a part of the build, it looks like Kaiser is well on his way to realizing his dreams of creating a self-driving skate ramp.