In a smart application for Tough Resin, Formlabs employee Josh Foisey has designed and 3D printed a skateboarding deck cam for his GoPro camera.

Have you ever wanted to attach a sports camera to the bottom of your skateboard? Well now you can. Formlabs employee Josh Foisey has shared his design for a 3D printed deck cam which securely mounts a GoPro to the underside.

Foisey is a videographer for Formlabs in Massachusetts, US, and for many years has filmed his skateboarding by either holding the camera in his hand or duct-taping it to the board. The challenge is that, whilst GoPro cameras are commonly used in many sports, it can be difficult to attach them to boards.

But Formlabs’ Tough Resin was designed specifically for stronger 3D printing applications, so Foisey began working on a high quality GoPro mount using the material. You can see the spectacular results in this video:

How was the Skateboarding Deck Cam made?

The Deck Cam stays in place while you ride the skateboard, and allows you to capture impressive footage while withstanding knocks and abuse.

“We knew this mount would take a beating — so we printed the part with our Tough resin, which deforms before it breaks. Under heavy vibration and hard landings, Tough handles stress better — and gives us the added flexibility that we need to open up the mount,” Foisey said.

This design works with a GoPro Hero 3 or Hero 4, the models now commonly in used by sports fans. However, the design went through a number of iterations before settling on the final version of the skateboarding deck cam.

“After printing a prototype that fit the Hero, we took it out to the streets where it promptly snapped,” he said. They had to study this breaking point closer to help them improve the design.

If you own a Formlabs 3D printer then the design is relatively simple to print, and can be attached with the help of some nuts, screws and bolts… but remember to attach it tightly!

“The mounting plate should fit directly against the board, sandwiched between the board and the truck,” advises the tutorial.