Step 1:  Take a piece of paper.

Step 2: Drop into water.

Step 3: Surf..?

That’s what Mike Sheldrake set out to do.  Taking surf board construction from a decidedly Product Designer point of view, Sheldrake, bored of his slowly dying surfboard and looking to build his own, came up with the concept of replacing the typically-used foam in a surfboard with a honeycomb-ish lattice isogrid of a lighter-weight material: paper.  Or in this case, cardboard.

Starting with some free modeling software and a few curves, Sheldrake designed the board and had the pieces cut on a CNC router.  After tediously assembling the slotted pieces together to form the lattice, fibreglass sheets are applied and board is born.

Sheldrake is currently perfecting the board’s construction (via several prototypes) and attributes the idea to expanding on  previous efforts to make surfable paper by Tom Morey.

It just goes to show you that great flashes of design often come out of taking a step back and looking at a product in all of its possible simplicity, and applying basic construction techniques to achieve that goal.

Images courtesy sheldrake.net

(Thanks Candice!)

More images after the break!