This is EngineeringSport’s first guest blog! We are very pleased to present Italian Sports Engineer Nunzio Lanotte’s piece on performance increases in swimming. We now have the requisite infrastructure to accept guest submissions, so if you would like to submit something please get in touch via our contact us page. Shanghai 2011 Revisited The Swimming […]
A year to go: engineering sport for London 2012
The common perception of engineering and sport is that of shiny new bikes, aerodynamic helmets and sleek bobsleds. I often get asked, “isn’t it just the best equipment that wins now, rather than the athlete?” The answer – as far as I’m concerned – is obviously “no” and I’ve spent my working life in the […]
Kinect Biomechanics: Part 2
This series of posts looks at the Kinect as a potential tool for analysis in Biomechanics. Previously we explored the quality of algorithms which detect a user’s body segments, finding real potential should the appropriate tools be developed. The power of the Kinect comes from its ability to ‘see’ depth, every point on an image […]
The problem of the Wimbledon roof
The comments made about the new roof over Wimbledon’s Centre Court have puzzled me. The Wall Street Journal and the Times had the headline “Wimbledon Roof Slows Balls Down” while the Daily Mail had “How Centre Court’s new roof puts a dampener on Andy Murray’s serve” (I admit that I’m quoted in this one). One […]
Materials World Magazine Article: Finite Element Testing in Sport
Materials World Magazine recently invited me to write a feature article for a special edition on sports engineering. I was asked to showcase our work (in collaboration with Prince Sports) on a finite element model of a tennis racket.The project aims to develop a model for use in the design of the next generation of tennis rackets, giving ultimate control over […]
Journal of Sports Engineering and Technology, Special Edition on Predictive Modelling in Sport
Dr Simon Choppin and Dr Tom Allen are acting as guest editors for a special edition of Journal of Sports Engineering and Technology. The issue looks at the use of predictive modelling in sport and how it can be used to predict new behaviour, essentially how technology influences sports performance! If you’re an academic and […]
Premier League Relegation: the Wheel of Fortune
Well, it’s all over. And what an amazing day it was. It was exhausting trying to work out who was staying up and what the scenarios were. Here is what happened drawn as a polar time plot of the 5 teams that were in danger of relegation.
Survival Sunday in the Premier League: How to escape relegation.
Survival Sunday is almost upon us and my earlier post on the number of scenarios appears to have stirred up feelings – see The Premier League: predicting who will go down (and the strange case of scenario no. 55). To recap, there are 5 teams separated by only one point who could all get relegated to […]
Physics of the groundstroke in tennis
Understanding the physics of the groundstroke in tennis is important for the International Tennis Federation, tennis brands and players. As a research centre we recently published a paper in the journal of Sports Sciences on this subject. Following publication the paper was featured in a short article in Men’s Health magazine. Cover of Men’s Health […]
The Premier League: predicting who will go down (and the strange case of scenario no. 55)
As a Blackburn Rovers season ticket holder I can’t believe that it’s come down to the last game of the season. By 5.45pm on Sunday 22nd May 2011, two of five teams currently separated by only a single point will have been relegated from the Premier league (Table 1). Comments from mates like “you’ll be […]
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