Blink and you’ll miss it The next question in our Ask a sports engineer series is: Are sports getting too fast to view? With the constant pushing of boundaries by athlete’s and the wider availability of sports scientists and top coaches many sporting events are becoming more and more closely fought, by a greater number […]
High speed sports
In my previous article I examined how quickly Usain Bolt completes his 100 m race, and the difference between his maximum and average running speed. We found that Usain Bolt is the fastest man in the 100 metres, but how fast is he compared to other athletes in other running events or even other athletic […]
Can the swimsuits of 2012 beat the polyurethane swimsuits of 2009?
Guest blogs have unfortunately taken a back seat recently as the ‘ask a sports engineer’ project has got underway. I’ve had this article sitting in my inbox for a while and I thought it has particular relevance with the Olympic swimming underway and the controversy currently surrounding some of the incredible results we’re seeing in […]
Professor Haake and the Royal Institution
Professor Haake has been working with the Royal Institution over the past few months to create a series of impressive videos exploring the world of technology in sport. They are available to view on the website but I’ve also embedded the videos below so you can view them on our blog too. Take a look […]
What makes an Olympic skin suit so special?
The next question in our ‘Ask a Sports Engineer’ series tackles some of the cutting edge equipment that is used across a wide range of sports: the skin suit. Nađa Higl wearing a Jaked swimsuit at the 2010 European Aquatics Championships in Budapest When talking about skin suits we are referring to the tight, […]
The History of the Bicycle
In 2005 the bicycle was voted the most significant technological invention since 1800; this blog looks back at the history of the bicycle and investigates how sports engineering has helped the bicycle achieve this accolade. The history of the first bicycle is a little muddled; like many great inventions its current design has been more […]
Sprinting’s latest performance enhancer: Usain Bolt.
The following article is a synopsis of “Material Advantage” which was published in Physics World in July 2012. It can be found here. — When I went into the field of sports engineering, people would say to me “it’s ruining sport, it’s just about who has the best equipment”. This put me in a dilemma: […]
How Are Footballs Made?
Football is the most popular sport on the planet. In 2006 FIFA reported that there were 265 million players registered to one of its member associations, and this doesn’t include the countless players who have the occasional kick around at the park. Around 40 million footballs are sold each year around the world, making the […]
Is tennis spinning out of control?
Yesterday, the Sunday Times reported that some professional tennis players (allegedly) spray their strings with silicon to help them generate spin (Link to report in The Australian due to Times’ paywall). Spin plays an important role in Tennis, top-spin generates a vertical force which cause the ball to dip, this allows a player to keep […]
How fast is Usain Bolt?
Introduction Four years ago Usain Bolt from Jamaica was pretty much unknown, but since then he has become, arguably, the most famous athlete in the world. In 2010 I wrote an article attempting to predict how far he would jump in the long jump. The fame surrounding Bolt is so great that this article quickly […]
Engineering Sport 