Synopsis of Current Developments: Modelling Equipment

Competitive and recreational athletes are continually increasing the demands on the performance of their equipment. The days of athletes tweaking their equipment for the extra few percentage points of improvement, if not completely in the past, is nearly so. Sports engineers, applying the latest and most powerful modelling and analysis tools to each and every piece of sports equipment, are replacing the age-old tinkering process. In some cases the goals are to optimize the design and performance of the equipment, in other cases, it is simply to understand the physics of existing sports equipment as a starting point to future development.