How trampolines are made
A trampoline mat has almost no stretch of its own. Every bit of the bounce is stored in the springs around its edge.
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- things upstream
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- raw sources
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- steps from the ground
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The short version
The bounce lives in the springs, not the fabric. A factory bends galvanized steel tubing into curved rails that join into a ring, and fits legs of the same steel. The mat is woven polypropylene, cut to shape and stitched with an attachment point for every spring. Foam pads in PVC covers and a polyethylene safety net finish the kit.
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Bend the frame rails
Lengths of steel tubing are cut and bent into curved sections. Joined end to end, they make the circle, octagon or rectangle that most home trampolines take.
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Dip the steel in zinc
The steel gets a zinc skin so it can stand outdoors for years without rusting. In hot-dip galvanizing, cleaned and fluxed steel is lowered into molten zinc, which alloys with the surface.
about 450 °C zinc bath
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Join the legs
Legs cut from the same galvanized tube hold the frame off the ground. Sturdier frames use welded joints rather than relying only on bolts and screws.
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Weave the bounce fabric
Polypropylene yarn is woven into a tight, waterproof cloth treated to resist sunlight. This cloth barely stretches, so the force of each landing passes straight out to the springs.
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Stitch the bed edge
Cut to shape, the fabric has its rim reinforced with heavy stitching and an attachment point for each spring. The first modern trampoline, built in 1936, did the same job with grommets set into a sheet of canvas.
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Sew the pads and net
Thick shock-absorbing foam is sealed inside PVC or vinyl covers that will lie over the springs and frame. The enclosure net is made of UV-resistant polyethylene, fine enough that fingers do not catch in it.
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Hook the springs on
Galvanized steel coil springs link each attachment point on the mat to the frame rail and pull the bed taut. A full-size competition trampoline uses around 110 of them.
around 110 springs on a competition bed
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Worth repeating
- George Nissen named the trampoline after trampolín, the Spanish word for a diving board, which he heard on a tour of Mexico.
- Spaceball, a team game played on a walled trampoline, was invented by George Nissen with Scott Carpenter and used in NASA space training.
- Trampoline-like life nets, used by firefighters to catch people jumping from burning buildings, were invented in 1887.
Back to the ground
Follow every input upstream and trampoline starts as these 22 raw sources.
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Sources
These sources say little about the factory steps themselves, so parts of this line are a general description. Treat the details with care, and tell us if you know better.
Cite this page: "How trampolines are made." Assembly Line, 2026-11-03. https://assemblyline.org/make/trampoline