Once again I have created a group on the ESPN NCAA Basketball Tournament Challenge for curiouscat basketball fans. To participate, go to the curiouscat ESPN group and make your picks.
Go Badgers and Go Davidson,
Category Archives: Sports
Go Badgers
The Wisconsin Badgers are ranked as the number 1 college basketball team for the first time ever. Go Badgers.
Engineering Basketball Flop
Despite innovation, basketball maker loses grip on customers (newspaper broke the link so I removed it)
However, NBA players found many problems with the new ball, claiming that it caused finger cuts and friction burns. More important, they complained of control problems because of inconsistent bouncing by the new ball, its tendency to stick to the floor and backboards when dry, and the difficulty in gripping it when wet.
Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks, asked researchers at the University of Texas in Arlington to compare the performances of both the synthetic and leather balls. Their investigation found that the microfiber composite ball did not bounce as high as the leather design and that it bounced 30 percent more erratically.
The investigators also used silicon sheets to replicate the surface of a player’s hands as they conducted frictional tests on the balls. The new balls were found to be slippery even when slightly moistened, whereas the leather balls actually became tackier when wet, making them easier to grip.
These results are not surprising because the synthetic covering is not as moisture absorbent as leather. These findings seemed to confirm the players’ concerns about the new ball.
Related: NBA to ditch new ball, return to old – The Science of the Football Swerve – Baseball Pitch Designed in the Lab
Baseball Pitch Designed in the Lab
Five years ago, computer scientist Ryutaro Himeno was testing super-computers by modeling the fluid dynamics of airflow around baseballs. Himeno’s deconstruction of existing pitches led to a strange new one—whirling clockwise as it flew forward, the virtual ball curved as abruptly as its closest relative, the slider, but without sinking. Himeno met with Kazushi Tezuka, who runs baseball training centers in Tokyo and Osaka, and they ironed out the pitch’s mechanics.
As detailed in the books the pair has since authored, a gyroball calls for a complex flip of the fingers during release, ending with the thumb pointed down. At its most effective, the pitch breaks horizontally as it nears the batter, as though shrugging off gravity.
Gravity-Defying Baseball Pitch Ready for U.S. – an update on the article above. Details from the scientist (pdf)
Research on Reducing Hamstring Injuries
Good sports: Hamstring findings may help injured athletes stay healthy:
The researchers’ computer simulations enable them to estimate how much load the hamstrings are under and how much they’re stretched. In animal models, says Thelen, the mechanical strain a muscle is experiencing is a good predictor of injury potential.
Now the researchers can translate what they’ve learned about hamstring muscle mechanics into how best to rehabilitate the muscle after injury. Sherry and Thomas Best, an associate professor of biomedical engineering, family medicine and orthopedics and rehabilitation, have discovered that exercise programs that strengthen the core muscles-the abs and lower back-are related to fewer hamstring re-injuries. “Through our experiments and simulations, we’ve been able to show that these muscles can have a large influence on pelvic orientation, which affects hamstring stretch-and thus, presumably affects injury potential,” says Thelen.
Regular Exercise Reduces Fatigue
Regular Exercise Plays A Consistent And Significant Role In Reducing Fatigue:
Health professionals encourage regular exercise to prevent or improve symptoms of conditions such as diabetes, heart disease and obesity, but the scientific evidence on whether exercise increases or reduces fatigue had never been reviewed quantitatively. O’Connor, kinesiology professor Rod Dishman and lead author Tim Puetz, who recently completed his doctoral work at UGA, analyzed 70 randomized, controlled trials that enrolled a total of 6,807 subjects. They found strong support for the role of exercise in reducing fatigue.
For myself this seems true. But what seems true for me doesn’t mean much.
Continue reading
Sports Science Open Access Journal
Sport Science is a Peer-Reviewed Site for Sport Research (open access). An interesting recent publication: One Hundred and Fifty Years of Rowing Faster by Stephen Seiler:
Improvements in rowing technique have increased boat speed by reducing boat yaw, pitch and roll, and by improving the pattern of force application. New tools for real-time measurement and feedback of boat kinematics and force patterns are opening new approaches to training of individual rowers and to selection of rowers for team boats.
They also moderate a email list with items of interest including academic positions in areas such as: Mechanical Engineering, focusing on Biomechanics; Sports Physiologist; Exercise and Sport Science.
Related: Blog posts on open access science – sports engineering and science posts
Excercize and Learning
Increasingly, researchers are finding that brain activity and brain development are enhanced by physical exercise. It now appears that exercise can help kids learn at school.
Listen to the podcast from NPR today
Exercise Improves Learning and Memory, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, 1999.
Science of the High Jump
high jumper seems to translate the horizontal velocity of the run-up into vertical motion over the bar, but what actually happens is more related to springs, Dapena says. “The fast run-up makes the muscles of the takeoff leg stretch very quickly after the takeoff foot is planted on the ground, and this stimulates those muscles, which can then make larger forces.”
To get the fastest vertical acceleration, your foot must push against the ground for as long as possible. And that requires the runner to, as Dapena says, run with “the butt scraping the ground.” Still, there’s a tradeoff — if you run too low, your overly flexed knees will create a puny push-off.
Related: Score One for Sports Science – posts related to athletics – Ministry of Silly Walks
Robot Football (Soccer)
In addition to the World Cup another international football event is taking place in Germany this month: RoboCup 2006
Researcher Founds a Robot Soccer Dynasty (including video webcast):
RoboCup is an international project to foster advances in artificial intelligence and intelligent robotics research. The ultimate goal of RoboCup is to develop, by 2050, a team of fully autonomous humanoid robots that can beat the human world champion soccer team. Veloso and Carnegie Mellon have been participating since “pre-RoboCup” events in 1996 and the first official RoboCup games in 1997. Veloso was general chair of RoboCup 2001 in Seattle.