Foldable Foam Roller

I travel a lot for volleyball, and I am always looking for a foam roller to stretch with. Foam rollers are way too big to fit in my sports bag, so I created a shorter roller that can fold and collapse, allowing it to easily fit within a bag.

The design is highly customizable. It is possible to change the main frame of the body to be something other than wood, maybe a stronger material, but I found that wood works well. It is easy to change the dimensions if you want a longer or wider foam roller, and have somewhere larger than a backpack to put it, but my measurements are about the largest you can fit comfortably in a backpack. The foam on the outside can also be changed, if you want a softer material or just a different padding, as well as adding different bumps or grooves in the foam depending on preference.

1. 0.75” 10 Wood Boards 14”x1.5”
2. 0.5” Wood Support Rings 7.5” diameter
3. 0.5” 10 Styrofoam Sheets 14”x1.5” (can be thicker if more cushion is wanted)
4. Nylon Straps 1”x7.5”
5. Nail Gun
6. CNC Router for cutting out pieces

I made a miniature foam roller out of popsicle sticks, connected together with hot glue in a way so that it was still foldable. This helped to figure out how I wanted to connect the pieces and how many boards I wanted and needed to use to create a circular shape. It also allowed me to decide on the dimensions I wanted to go with to give a circular shape, while still being able to be flattened into a flat board.

I used the band saw to cut out my boards and supports, however, it would probably be easier and it would be more consistently shaped and exact if I used the CNC router to cut out my boards and supports instead. The CAD is very simple for this project as it is just geometric shapes with rectangles and decagons. When adding a handle to the supports in order to turn them when folding the foam roller, I just made rectangle holes as holds for the handles, but it wouldn't be too much harder to make more comfortable or different shaped handles to your liking.

This is my process of building and assembling my pieces and final product.

I took a large wood board, measured and drew out what I wanted to cut, and cut out my frame boards. I sanded the edges down a little and made sure that they were all uniform. I used the bandsaw to cut out the boards, but using the CNC router would be easier and higher quality.

I used a protractor to dimension out the angles and draw a decagon. I used the bandsaw to cut out the decagon. This would be used as the support for the roller. The wood needs to be thick enough to support the weight of your body, but also be thin enough to move and rotate easily inside of the roller, to allow it to maintain shape as well as collapse.

You can take foam, or some other form of cushioning, and trace the wood boards onto it for measurement. Then cut out the cushion and glue it to the boards.

This is my process for building the foam roller.

Once I had all of the pieces I would begin by just placing them all down together, and trying to put them together in way that would leave no gaps, but also allow the roller to collapse. It all needs to fit together very precisely to fully work. I would begin by placing the two decagon supports into the middle, and placing all of the boards around them. Make sure to fit them together precisely and put the supports where they would be the most supportive, but also be easy to reach to turn them flat when collapsing the roller. Once the supports are where you want, attach them to the boards using an attachment that is able to pivot and rotate with the supports. The attachment needs to be only in two spots, on the sides, so the top and bottom and fold together. Make sure everything is held in place while doing this for the next step. After this measure the nylon strap with the inside circumference of the roller, and cut out a few strips of that length, I found four strips to be a good number. Attach the nylon straps to the inside using the nail gun, or another attachment if you would prefer. These attachments can be firm, and don't need to be as precise. Now the roller should be working and we can add the cushion. Take the cushion that was made, you can add a design, grooves, or bumps if prefered. Attach the cushion with a strong glue, or another adhesive or attachment. Now the foam roller is complete.

My main issues I ran into while making this is getting everything to fit together, because the dimensions have to be very perfect. It is hard to get the supports to fit into the roller, especially without leaving gaps if the measurements aren't exact. I found that using the supports as a guide was the most consistent way of getting all of the pieces to fit together nicely. It doesn't matter as much if there are gaps, as the nylon straps will hold it all together, but there can't be any overlapping of parts. The best way to troubleshoot any problems found while making this is just to make sure all measurements are correct, especially if the foam roller is a different scale than what I did, the math might need to be checked as well in this case, and just keep moving and adjusting the pieces until they move correctly and are able to be adjusted.

Here is the link to my reflection form about this project.