Maybe if he didn't say ' basically i just want a way where I can go surfing or kiting for uni' it may have helped his cause. I know it was sarcasm but it didn't start him off too well in my opinion.
This place is so lame when the Grumpy Old Men take over to shout somebody down.
Of course, windsurfing was perfected in 1996 and any thought that it could be improved is considered an insult.
Hydrofoiling on a windsurfer needs to take a few ideas from the moths regarding keeping a constant height.
The question you should be asking is how do moths keep their up/down stability, and then apply that to other craft..
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depends on how you define social networking.....chat rooms? Been around long before facebook.....Myspace.....around long before Facebook....there have been many. Even forums for that matter....they existed long before Facebook. Going to a chamber of commerce evening with other small business owners is a form of social networking!!
I would have thought an engineer would be more creative....my impression is that they tend to look at things and ask themselves how that thing could be improved. They aren't all nescessarily out to re-invent the wheel. Paul Cockburn who is a part-time journalist who has written for Wheels and Motor magazines is also an industrial designer/engineer. He invented the Dolphin torch. He saw a market for something that wasn't being serviced so he went out and designed and built a product that did! I'm pretty sure he didn't need Facebook to do that.
I understand where you are coming from and what you are trying to achieve and I personally apologise if my immature comments upset you. I guess us 'old fogeys' think you may be trying to get a bit of a free ride when we have spent most of our lives working hard. We want to see our kids be a bit more self sufficient and act for themselves rather than hoping that others around will do it for them. I ride my kids hard because unfortunately they are lazy and think either myself or my wife will eventually clean their room, do their washing etc etc and you know what, we have been guilty of letting them believe that will probably happen. But there will come a time when they have to stand on their own 2 feet and be responsible for their own actions and decisions and choices. And then, they are going to have a sense of self worth, much like I am sure you would if you can come up with your own idea. Maybe you can come up with some and THEN ask the forum here which ones we think are valid, rather than asking US to come up with the ideas for you.
What about doing one of those disabled waterski foil things and instead of one big foil do say six small ones and have a deck with a bit of rocker and a bottom like a curved vee type like a spoon style knee board so the rider can lean into turns and have control. Use it for disabled kite surfers or something like that.
Oh yea the deck would have to have a fair bit of volume like 50-60lt I would reckon.
How dose that sound?
You could come up with a hydrofoil control system.
edition.cnn.com/videos
This video shows Don Montague on a catamaran where there is a lever operated by the waves which is mounted on the nose of the hull and operates the angle of the hydrofoil to adjust for the wave. The wave is not just at the surface but continues all the way to the seabed as a gradually smaller wave.
What you could do is have some sort of control based on letting air to the surface of the foil based on the depth of the foil in the water. A kind of self-regulation. When the foil gets too near the surface, air passes down it to reduce the lift.
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