While its far from elegant, it was surprisingly durable surviving for about 3 months of on and off use by myself, other staff and museum visitors. Composed of entirely laminated laser cut cardboard with the exception of the wheels, axles and the steering hinge and hinge pins, the scooter only weighed about 6 pounds, and could carry people up to 200lbs.
The scooter is supported by two beams 3'' tall and eight layers thick that runs from the steering hinge to the rear axle with the corrugation running long ways. The deck is five layers thick, with the corrugation running at alternating 90 degree angles to prevent denting. The front wheel supports were again eight layers thick with ten layers in between to hold the hinge.
Here's a detail of the front end: ten aluminum hinge pins were used to distribute the weight of the rider to the cardboard and nylon bushings were added around the axles to spread out the weight of the rider to a larger amount of cardboard. The use of a steel steering hinge ultimately proved to be the scooter's downfall. After the first few weeks of heavy use the hinge plate started to slide around on the pins compressing the cardboard next to it and eventually making the front end very wobbly. The structural integrity of the board itself was actually very good, as it became clear that it was becoming overly wobbly I actually tried jumping on it lightly and did not break the cardboard beams. As the over all design seems to have worked I plan to make a sleeker second attempt abandoning the hinge for a caster based steering method.
