On 4th December 2009 the new ball for the World Cup in South Africa was unveiled. The product of years of research and development, the ‘Jabulani‘ was the most highly engineered football the world had ever seen. Prior to the launch adidas had even gone to the extent of testing the ball in the Bundesliga, […]
Revenge of the spaghetti strings?
Many tennis commentators decry the demise of the wooden racket, with a smaller head and less forgiving nature, it demanded a more considered and poised form of play. While it is unlikely that a current professional, raised on cutting-edge carbon fibre rackets would revert to lumber, there is an outlawed stringing method which could have […]
Leipzig: meat, no vegetables and Sports Engineering
On the 18-20th November, Leipzig (Figure 1) in East Germany played host to the ANSYS Conference & 27th CADFEM Users´ Meeting. John Hart and Tom Allen from the Sports Engineering Research Group were in attendance, leaving behind cold wet Sheffield in exchange for cold wet Leipzig. ANSYS produce Finite Element (FE) and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) software. FE […]
Who really controls airtime?
On the 30th October the world’s best skiers and snowboards, along with thousands of fans/groupies will descend on Battersea power station in London for the Freeze. The freestyle snowsports competition will involve athletes descending a high run in slope before launching off a massive jump. The organisers have invested heavily in the event and along […]
