Dr Simon Choppin, Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Sports Engineering Research talks about his recent visit to Delft Technical University in the Netherlands for a collaborative student programme.
Every May, for the past three years, a group of students and lecturers from the MSc in Sports Engineering have left the confines of Collegiate Campus for Delft Technical University in the Netherlands. While there, we have helped to run a two-week “Special Topics” course in Sports Engineering. An intense programme that is a collaborative effort between four Universities: Delft Technical, Amsterdam Free, Sheffield Hallam and Chemnitz Technical (in Germany). Students attend from all four institutions.
Delft is a picturesque city in the west of the Netherlands, around 70 km South East of Amsterdam. In addition to its cobbled lanes, tranquil canals and imposing churches it also hosts one of the finest technical Universities in the world. Through this continued collaboration we have developed relationships with academics and shown our students the excellent laboratories and learning spaces that are on offer.
At the start of the course we split our students into groups that contain members from each of the Universities. They need to get to know each other’s strengths and weaknesses and how they’re going to work together for the next two weeks.
There are two objectives to the course. The first is to create a predictive cycling model: A mathematical construct which should be able to determine how long a specific athlete on a specific bike will take to complete a 500-metre time trial. The second is to develop a concept for an innovation that will help to improve the performance of elite track cyclists.
Students were supported with two weeks of lectures, experiments and analysis. Speakers were split between academia and industry, including representatives from the Dutch bike company Koga, sprint cyclists and world-leading academics working in bicycle dynamics. Industry and athlete perspectives were essential to help each group decide which innovation ideas might prove effective and which were frivolous distractions.
A crucial aspect of this course is resource management (an essential aspect of engineering) – each group must develop their best solution given the expertise, facilities and time they have available. Rather than complete a series of prescribed experiments, the students were given large test spaces and certain analytical tools and equipment (such as a device which measures a cyclist’s frontal area developed in our research centre). It was up to each group to develop and perform a series of effective experiments.
At the end of the two weeks the whole course travels to the test space, which this year was a velodrome in Alkmaar, north of Amsterdam. As the culmination of the course, each group brings their bicycle and rider of choice and completes an individual time trial. Before they begin, each group must submit a prediction; their best estimate of how long the time-trial will take. Success is based not on the fastest time, but the most accurate prediction – as a result each group adopts vastly different strategies. This could be a full-power effort on a carbon-fibre race bike or a steady pootle on a heavy, steel shopping bike. The winning team is often only a few hundredths of a second from their prediction a fantastic effort given the time each group has to develop their prediction.
In addition to this, each group presents their innovation ideas which are judged by an expert panel of academia and industry. Ideas have ranged from virtual reality training environments to cycling jerseys which have built in sails (for training).
As often happens, the element of competition brings with it an atmosphere of excitement and anticipation. After announcing the winning groups, there is an opportunity for further discussion and reflection at one of the excellent bars and restaurants in Delft.
This course is made possible with Erasmus funding. We’re able to offer travel and accommodation to our students and we believe this experience really enhances the experience of our students. We are seeking to further develop this collaboration and have submitted a grant for an Erasmus plus knowledge alliance grant. We would like to formalise the collaboration between the Universities in Europe which offer Sports Engineering programs and have proposed an “Alliance for Sports Engineering Education” (A4SEE). If successful, this grant will allow us to expand our shared programs and further develop what we’re able to offer to our students.
