“Is sport good for us” was the question posed to me for my first blog article for Engineering Sport. Not exactly an ‘easy ice breaker’, but I thought I’d have a good go at it. So, where to start? First, I think it’d be a good idea to differentiate (at least a little) between sport […]
This July sees the next biannual conference on Sports Engineering, held at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell. The conference always has a lot of interesting papers on the subject of engineering and technology in sport. Thanks to the internet age, the papers at this conference are also available online for anyone to read. Before the […]
At the museum we have a great exhibit with two racing bikes along a simulated course; this has sparked a range of questions on the topic of cycling, from the physics of riding a bike to the most popular question; how can we cycle faster? How do we master the art of balancing on two […]
As something most of us will have wondered when swimming, the next blog post in our ‘ask a Sports Engineer!’ series looks at how long we’re able to hold our breath for underwater. Despite what most people would think, humans are actually quite well suited to being underwater, as after all, we spend the first […]
This is a question often posed by football fans as it seems to be a regular trend that the most impressive footballers in the world are from Southern America. You can strike up a debate with anyone about who the greatest ever football player is and you can almost guarantee the following three names will […]
I was lucky enough recently to visit a relative in California with a house above the San Francisco Bay. How excited was I when I realised I could see NASA Ames’ Moffett Field across the bay? This houses Hangar One, an old airship hanger like something out of Flash Gordon, and the World’s largest wind […]
Continuing with our guest blog submissions, we’ve got a great new post looking at the minimalist running shoe craze. As most runners are probably aware, minimalist shoes are currently all the rage. Proponents of these shoes believe that they are beneficial for both performance and health. Opponents, on the other hand, contend that these shoes […]
I taught the mechanics of solids to mechanical engineering students for around 15 years. When it came to exams, I always tried to include examples from the real world that would stretch the most able of the students – I even had a question relating the bending of beams with the deflection of springboards during […]
As many of you will already be aware, FIFA and particularly Sepp Blatter have recently indicated that goal line technology does have a role in football (something we’ve argued for some time). Frank Lampard’s non-goal against Germany in the last world cup has been cited as the turning point, a mistake which must not be repeated. For […]
Not only was I privileged enough to meet 4-time World Ironman Champion Chrissie Wellington, but I also got to put her through her paces live on air at the BBC’s 80th birthday event for the World Service down at Bush House in London. For info, the Ironman is a 3.9 km swim, a 180 km […]
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