Science of the London Games

Science and technology are practically cousins when it comes to sports. Recently NBC created great short videos about the science of the Summer 2012 Olympic Games. They have uploaded several of these videos to NBCLearn.com, and I highly recommend checking them out.

My personal favorites are the “Designing a Fast Pool” video and the “Sarah Robles and the Mechanics of Weightlifting.” The pool video dives (I apologize) into the simple but impactful science of waves in a pool. The video explains what makes the London pool so ‘fast’ and why the inner lanes are favored by athletes.  My other favorite video features friend of the blog Sarah Robles. You may remember I wrote about Sarah’s clever marketing techniques to raise money to go to the Games. That video shares the complexity of recreating the amazing strength of Robles with robotics. Other topics these videos cover include the Biomechanics of Usain Bolt, the Long Jump of Bryan Clay and Engineering for Mobility (wheelchair mechanics). (Ref. nbclearn.com)