Trinity engineering students Aoife Considine and Alberto Cañizares
Two Irish snowboarding addicts and Trinity College Dublin engineering students have won the €2,400 Irish category of the James Dyson Award for their DIY Snowboard invention called Boundless.
Boundless is a modern snowboard binding system that solves the problems of fixed foot positioning designed to give full freedom when snowboarding. It was invented by Trinity engineering students Aoife Considine and Alberto Cañizares, both 22.
It offers a 360-degree rotational binding attachment that goes between board and binding that enables bindings to be unlocked, quickly adjusted and re-locked into another position depending on the user’s needs.
This removes the necessity of tools, enabling smooth transition between different stances. You remove the need for screwdrivers to adjust bindings which causes the loss of momentum on flat surfaces and the risk of injury on chairlifts.
Considine and Cañizares will receive €2,400 from the James Dyson Foundation, and progress as finalists to the international stage of the award, and be in with a chance of claiming the grand prize of €35,000 and receiving international exposure for their invention. Their invention can be viewed at online.
The pair of inventors discovered their shared passion for snow sports as undergraduates in Mechanical Engineering at Trinity College Dublin. They joined the college snow sports club on trips to the Alps and the friends quickly realised how frustrating the problems with snowboards were.
“Alberto got fed up having to wait for me when we got to flat areas as it took me so long to get across these flats with the current snowboard binding systems,” Considine said.
They decided to work on a solution to the problem as part of their third year “Engineering Management” module in Trinity.
“We decided to keep working on the project and when the James Dyson Award came around, we jumped at the idea to enter. We never believed we would actually win; we were happy just to have our idea out there.”
