Dr Simon Goodwill (head of sports engineering) recently visited Bradway Primary School to give a presentation on sports engineering to a class of children. Here’s Simon discussing how it went . . .
“Bradway Primary School hosted a #WorldofWork week, which involved inviting parents to come into the school and talk about their occupations to the children. My daughter – currently in Y4 at the school – thought that her class would find my job interesting.
“I decided to split my presentation into two halves. The children and I first discussed what a sports engineer actually does. Amazingly, the children seemed to have a good understanding that a generic engineer is someone who designs products. As a result, they quickly concluded that a sports engineer must be someone who designs sports equipment. To help illustrate the point, I used the example of a tennis racket. More specifically, I asked the class to think about what makes a good tennis racket, and how the racket’s design could be improved by a sports engineer. I then showed the children rackets from different eras: traditional wooden rackets, steel rackets, an aluminium racket, and finally a carbon fibre tennis racket.
Simon Goodwill is head of sports engineering at Sheffield Hallam University
“The children wasted no time identifying the material used in each racket. They also concluded that sports engineers were making the head size of the rackets bigger – leading to improved performance through making it easier to hit the ball. I used an oversized tennis racket to illustrate the practical limit to racket size (although we all agreed it would be fun to watch Andy Murray and Roger Federer trying to play a match with oversized rackets), and how the engineer must optimise this design.
“It was wonderful to see the children so engaged and interested in the concept of sports engineering. I asked lots of questions, and each child that answered a question won a tennis ball. This not only encouraged the children to answer, but also helped me work out which child had answered a question. I also learnt an important lesson myself: giving every child in a class of 30 a tennis ball can rapidly lead to a lot of tennis balls flying about a room ( . . . fortunately, no windows were smashed)!
“The second half of my talk involved explaining how sports engineering can also help measure athlete (and non-athlete) performance. Using a simple £10 pressure mat, we worked out how high a person could jump. This was calculated by measuring how long the person was in the air for whilst jumping. The children grasped that if you were in the air for a short time, you did not jump very high. Conversely, if you were in the air for a long period, you did jump relatively high. Each child then had a go at jumping as high as possible, giving them first hand experience of conducting an advanced experiment. It was amazing to see the enthusiasm on the faces of the children as they took part in the experiment.
Simon with his oversized tennis racket
“Overall, the opportunity to discuss sports engineering with the children at Bradway Primary School proved to be a fantastic experience. The children took a keen interest in the topic and showed an excellent ability to analyse and ask questions. Hopefully they also have lots of fun and exercise making use of their new tennis balls! As a research group we are constantly looking at opportunities to engage in STEM-related public engagement activities and would welcome any suggestions. We regularly hold events for Science Week, and we are also active in submitting grant applications to deliver public engagement programmes.”
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