Speaker

Professor Stephen Haake

About this event

Individual sports have developed over the last thousands of years with only current manufacturing capabilities, the laws of physics and imagination as the limiting factors.  The development of professional sport as a spectator sport has necessitated Laws to be developed for each sport to ensure that everyone plays by the same rules.  However, in our technological world, there are plenty of opportunities to use science and engineering to enhance performance either of athletes, products, or more generally of the two together. 

This presentation will describe research being carried out at Sheffield Hallam University to understand the fundamental mechanics of the athlete's interaction with equipment.    The research uses extensive footage using high speed video running at over 4,000 pictures per second to slow down the action of sports men and women.  Computer simulations will be used to look at developments in sports such as football, tennis, cycling, and skeleton bobsleigh.  In Olympic and UEFA European Championship year, the use of technology leads to the inevitable question - when is it cheating?  Come along to find out the answer.

The presentation is suitable to those with an interest either in sport or technology and the physics will be understandable to those in secondary or higher education, or those with a general technical bias.