A Concerned Rink Rat
00 The Puck Stops Here Way
St. Louis Park, MN 55821
January 29, 2018
Dear Saint Louis Park City Council,
Ever since kindergarten, when my teacher sent home a pamphlet on Mite, co-ed hockey, I have been in love with the sport. In Minnesota, hockey is a big thing. So naturally, there are a lot of hockey players using outdoor rinks. But lots of snow, too, which causes a lot of crevices and bumps and ridges that trip me up and make me topple over as soon as I skate over them.
To solve this problem most people shovel or use a snowblower to get the snow off the ice. They then use a homemade device with a hose attached to the end that sprays out water and uses a towel to wipe it clean. Not only is this ineffective, it requires a lot of maintenance and work.
My solution to this problem is to build a mini, lawn mower-sized Zamboni. It would be automatic, and would work kind of like a Roomba vacuum in the sense that it would find its way around the rink using a program made to have the Zamboni travel around a standard ice rink size. The program would make the Zamboni first snow blow the rink, then shave off a layer of ice, and pick it up using a horizontal auger that brings the ice to a vertical auger. The vertical auger would then bring the ice to a tank that would melt the ice, turn it into water, and then, like the homemade spraying device it would spray the rink with the melted ice, and run over it with a towel. There would also be a sensor in the tank to detect when ice came in, and to know when to start melting it.
People from the community could volunteer to work the Zamboni every few hours, even as required volunteer work for their children’s hockey association. Everybody who worked the Zamboni would need to undergo training on how to use it, but it would need to be simple enough for a parent to just be able to open a small shed and hit a button, and for it to go do its job. There would need to be a small shed to keep the Zamboni in overnight, and while the snowblowers could get through light snow, the rink would need shoveling for very heavy snow.
A challenge would be melting the ice shavings in time to get them out onto the rink in time, and another challenge would be having a power source for the heat, the motors, the sensors, and everything else.
A Zamboni, and mini Zamboni (the Zamboni 100) have already been effective, and a small outdoor Zamboni - the Alaska Ice Dragon which uses propane to melt off a layer of ice - have already been used, but my invention would be different, and more effective for its purposes than all of these devices, because it would be automatic, fast, easy, and specialized for outdoor rinks.
A Roomba vacuum shows how an automatic device can work in an enclosed area, and be effective. My invention would be a combination of the mini Zamboni idea, and also of the Roomba automation style, but would also use heat to get water like the Alaska Ice Dragon.
Out of the ten rinks in Saint Louis Park, I think it would be best to target a few of them to try my idea out on.
Thank you for listening to my thoughts about my idea, and I hope you consider it as a solution,
Sincerely,
A Concerned Rink Rat
References:
Home. (n.d.). Retrieved January 29, 2018, from http://www.alaskaicedragon.com/
Kaczke, L. (2016, December 30). Teams of Duluth parents spend their evenings maintaining outdoor ice rinks. Duluth News Tribune. Retrieved January 29, 2018, from http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/news/4190070-teams-duluth-parents-spend-their-evenings- maintaining-outdoor-ice-rinks
League of Minnesota Cities. (2017, August 25). Parks and Recreation Loss Control Guide. Retrieved January 29, 2018, from https://www.lmc.org/media/document/1/parkandrecreationlosscontrolguide.pdf
Roomba® Robot Vacuums. (n.d.). Retrieved January 29, 2018, from http://www.irobot.com/For-the- Home/Vacuuming/Roomba.aspx
St. Louis Park, MN. (n.d.). Retrieved January 29, 2018, from https://www.stlouispark.org/our-city/thing- to-do/outdoor-skating-sledding
The Energy Management Manual for Arena and Rink Operators. (n.d.). Retrieved January 29, 2018, from http://www.rfabc.com/Assets/RFABC Digital Assets/pdf/energy2.pdf
Timmons, B. (2015, December 14). Hard-and-fast rule: There’s just something about outdoor hockey. Star Tribune. Retrieved January 29, 2018, from http://www.startribune.com/bob-timmons/10646126/
Zamboni® - Nothing else is even close. (n.d.). Retrieved January 29, 2018, from https://Zamboni.com/about/how-it-works/
Zamboni® - Nothing else is even close. (n.d.). Retrieved January 29, 2018, from https://Zamboni.com/machines/model-100/