The sled was created as part of a collaboration between (USABS) and four companies, including with their long-term partner, the Machintek Corporation.

Stress Engineering, a consulting engineering firm, designed the sled by using advanced modelling and simulation.

The company also conducted instrumentation and testing on the sled to solve technical challenges and optimise performance.

DeBotech provided the carbon fibre required for the sled, while Carpenter Technology supplied steel.

"This new project is the next step in our evolution of the USABS skeleton sled," said Tuffy Latour, the USABS head coach.

"We changed up the design team slightly from past skeleton sled models by adding Stress Engineering.

"Stress offers us a team of engineers and the expertise to take our sleds to the next level.

"Our long-time partners, Machintek, DeBotech and Carpenter are still involved and we couldn’t do this without their support."

The four sleds produced were used for the first time when the Lake Placid track opened earlier this month.

An evolution of the ProtoStar project is also ongoing, with their sleds having been tested on the last season’s World Cup and Intercontinental Cup circuits.

Matt Antoine, winner of an Olympic bronze medal on the sled at Sochi 2014, has been conducting the testing with Annie O’Shea and Katie Uhlaender.

A skeleton workshop was also built by USABS over the summer, with the site set to be used for sled and runner work, in addition to video review from training and competition.