International Trade Mechanisms

Former pro skateboarder Dan Gesmer was frustrated with the poor performance of the skateboard turning mechanisms known as “trucks.” Every brand on the market was based on a model derived from 1930s roller skates.

He thought he could devise a better system. Using an innovative American high-tech mathematics modeling software tool called Mathematica®, he was able to perform a lifetime’s worth of math in a short amount of time. He then used the data to patent a design for a truck that would provide a high degree of steering control along with increased shock absorption and more energy return.

His company, Seismic Trucks, contracts the manufacturing out to a German firm. The special truck uses a high-tensile, spring-loaded design that must be precision-manufactured. With a long history of watch and toy manufacture, German firms excel at such engineering.

Thus, American know-how and information technology have been combined with a foreign comparative advantage in spring precision engineering to improve a unique American cultural and social export, the skateboard.

Dan Gesmer
Seismic Trucks
1630 30th St. 257
Boulder, CO 80301 - U.S.A
Phone: (303) 440 9449
Fax: (303) 440 7106

For more information, check:

http://www.mathematica.com/discovery/twist.html