Rigid Composite Structures
24 hours
Registration, Pricing and Class Availability


In the spirit of Applied Composites we've developed Rigid Composite Structures to teach students what it takes to create a rigid immovable composite product using a longboard (skateboard) as our didactic vehicle. In Applied Composites the engineering involved looks at many points of varying stress factors from stiff, flexible and progressive change over time/distance, which can be quite challenging. In Rigid Composites Structures we go the other direction a bit and talk about what is needed to create a nearly zero deflection, homogenously load bearing structure. Basically, engineering a brick. The catch is, we want this as thin and light as possible and herein lies the difficulty.

Students will have access to many fibers including fiberglass (in various weaves), carbon fiber, Kevlar and occasionally other specialty fibers such as basalt and boron, various core materials (from low to high tech), epoxy, polyester, and vinyl ester resins, and equipment for many different layup methods.