Comments for The Centre for Sports Engineering Research

Comment on The heat is on for cyclists in the London velodrome by Ed

Ed — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 22:32:32 +0000

A very good article indeed and very interesting to read. It’s certainly very warm in there as I was there over the weekend.

Whilst I do not dispute the reduced drag due to higher temperatures I’d be interested to know what effects a couple of other effects of the heat would have on performance.

Firstly to the actual athlete themselves and how quickly they tire in the elevated temperature. I’m sure this elevated temperature will make the athletes tire quicker than if in a cooler environment or at least surely make it harder to get the hydration levels right before the event if they are waiting around for several hours before their particular event.

Secondly the effect of the extra grip the tyres are likely to have on the track due to the increased rubber temperature and whether this would lead to any increase in rolling resistance of the bike?

I am an engineer but certainly have little expertise in this field. Would be interesting to get an answer however (I’m sure the first point might be slightly more athlete specific however).

Comment on Survival Sunday in the Premier League: How to escape relegation. by Arjun Katro

Arjun Katro — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 18:55:27 +0000

Steve

Just came across this searching to an answer to a different question. Fantastic analysis.

What I wondered was whether it was practically possible for someone to do an MCS for the EPL to work out the probability distribution and likely points requirement to avoid relegation (to finish 17th). You’d need some simplifying assumptions like wins are 1-0 and draws 0-0, etc to avoid complicated GD scenarios. There is a finite (though very large – 1.8bn?) number of scenarios so it may be extremely difficult to actually run but it would show the number of points needed and also the probability distribution (e.g. 90% of the time 39pts is enough, etc). You could also then take a snaphot mid-season as that EPL table would be identical to one of the scenarios (omitting GD discrepancies to actual positions)

I just get infuriated with pundits talking vaguely about 42pts being the “magic number” so it would be nice to have some numbers!

What are your thoughts?

Arjun

Comment on Journal Special Edition by test2

test2 — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 05:38:35 +0000

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Comment on Balls behaving badly by Online Engineering tutorials

Online Engineering tutorials — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 19:27:19 +0000

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Comment on Kinect Biomechanics: Part 2 by How your Christmas present might revolutionise sports science « The Centre for Sports Engineering Research

Fri, 23 Dec 2011 17:50:42 +0000

[...] We’ve done some initial tests with the Kinect and it appears that it can measure the volume of a torso to around 2% accuracy and the position of the centre of mass to around 0.5%. Joint angles are not quite as good at the moment, particularly for the lower body (the Kinect appears to be optimised for the upper body) but early use shows promise. Apple appears to have taken out a patent on 3D cameras for its iPhone and no doubt other manufacturers will be thinking the same, with the possibility that we will soon be able to measure the 3D world around us. [...]

Comment on Kinect Biomechanics: Part 1 by wiredchop

wiredchop — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 09:13:52 +0000

Hi Bob,
This is a tricky one. The Kinect seems to be able to perceive depth for around 10 metres away from the camera. However, the algorithms which drive the skeleton tracking etc. are only functional within four. It’s not away from the realms of possibility to use the depth cloud directly to calculate what you’re after if you don’t mind getting involved in programming. However, the resolution of the depth value becomes very coarse at larger distances. We think this is due to the nature of the projected pattern used to calculate depth values.

Hope that’s of some use, thanks for reading!

Simon Choppin

Comment on Kinect Biomechanics: Part 1 by Bob K

Bob K — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 21:41:56 +0000

Have you guys done any analysis on maximum distance from event and field of view? I’m particularly interested in whether or not the Kinect can pick up the movement of an athlete with a ball, and make any estimates of
release of the object… for instance, see noahbasketball

Comment on Guest Blog: Shanghai 2011 revisited by Mathanas

Mathanas — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 08:44:45 +0000

The post is really interesting. The new and great innovations made are quite brilliant.

Comment on Kinect Biomechanics: Part 1 by wiredchop

wiredchop — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 13:18:34 +0000

We’re currently working on assessing the accuracy of the Kinect as a biomechanics and scanning tool. When you say length do you mean segment length as predicted by the skeleton tracking software, or the measurement accuracy of the depth camera system? We will be publishing data soon with relation to scanning accuracy.

Thanks for reading

Simon Choppin

Comment on Kinect Biomechanics: Part 1 by Linda

Linda — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 21:36:31 +0000

Is there information about the accuracy of length measurements taken from a Kinect? I want to measure upper extremity work space volume.