Rise Leg Test Surfaces

Various surfaces can be mounted to our force plate to give different wall textures for the leg and foot to experience. Our force plate is 6" by 6", so we cut the different materials to match the size of the plate. The majority of the climbing surfaces are listed here.

Cork Panels

These panels are available at many hardware stores in 12" by 12" squares. There seem to be 2 varieties, one with larger cork nuggets, and another with finer cork pieces.

Foam

This can be found at Home Depot near the insulation/ building materials section. Our particular version is by Insulfoam R-Tech.

Carpet Backing

This can be found at Home Depot in the carpeting section. At our local Home Depot, this was the only option and it had to be bought by the roll (~$19). The front side of this is a recycled foam conglomerate. The back side has a fiber mesh thst provides additional strength to the backing. Both sides of the carpet backing were used in testing.

Glass

Just a standard piece of glass from a local hardware store, cut to 6" by 6".

Ceramic Tile

This is just a standard ceramic tile that had an interesting honeycomb pattern on the back. It was picked up at Home Depot (~$0.19/tile). The front side is pretty flat and smooth. Both the front and back were used for testing.

Hardi-Back

This is possibly one of the surfaces on the climbing wall at the proving ground. It is a ready-made cement-like sheet that can be found at Home Depot. The surface is quite dusty and continues to shed as touched. Could cause problems for items that are not self-cleaning.

-- AMcClung? - 02 Aug 2004