The world’s first hockey Make-a-thon
A weeklong ideation workshop

Rethink the Rink kicked off in March 2018 with the world’s first hockey Make-a-thon – a weeklong workshop hosted at Carnegie Mellon University’s Makerspace in Pittsburgh.

Diverse teams of Carnegie Mellon engineering students were challenged to explore how advancements in material science can improve the safety of hockey dasher boards, reducing player impact without compromising puck performance. Not an easy task!

They had less than four days to develop, design and prototype safer dasher board solutions, tapping into Covestro materials and technical expertise. At the end of the week, the teams presented their creative ideas during an awards ceremony at the Penguins’ practice facility.

Watch the video below to hear what attendees had to say about the results!

Transforming ideas into action
Covestro hires ‘Rink Researchers’

The puck didn’t stop there!

The results of the weeklong workshop were so impressive that Covestro hired two of the students to serve as “Rink Researchers,” dedicating their summer to transform the ideas from Make-a-thon into a viable design concept. Rink Researchers Alex Duncan (pictured left) and Ian Suzuki (pictured right) worked full-time in the labs alongside Covestro experts, with the ultimate goal of producing a professional prototype.

It wasn’t long before their efforts caught the attention of a leading manufacturer of rink dasher boards, Athletica Sports Systems, which joined the project as a fourth partner.

With insight from the Penguins, and hands-on help from Athletica, this dynamic team developed a next-generation dasher board prototype, which will eventually be installed and tested at the Covestro Innovation Rink in the Penguins’ practice facility.

Check out this edition of PensPulse TV to learn more about the dasher board technology!
(Hint: The Rethink the Rink portion starts at the 15:00 time mark.)