Olympic Momentum
To showcase engineering’s contributions, we should capitalize on the popularity of sports.
By Rosemarie D. Wesson
The XXII Winter Olympics have drawn to a close, leaving a number of memorable moments. Bode Miller became the oldest medalist in alpine skiing history. Two-time Olympic snowboarding champion Shaun White, the U.S. favorite in the half-pipe, didn’t medal but was gracious in defeat. Figure skater-turned-analyst Johnny Weir was voted “best dresser,” while late-night comedians couldn’t resist commenting on NBC sportscaster Bob Costas and his eye infections.
Though less attention-grabbing, science and engineering feats also were on display at Sochi, as February’s Prism noted. Commercials described how BMW engineers helped design the two-man bobsled that propelled Team USA’s men to a bronze medal, their first time back on the podium in 62 years. The Learning Network and the New York Times published an excellent series entitled “Teaching the Sochi Olympics—Science, Health and Math (http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/02/12/teaching-the-sochi-olympics-science-health-and-math/).” The modules, targeted for use by middle and high school teachers, discuss concepts ranging from the science of snowmaking to the design of the slopestyle course.
NBC Learn and NBC Sports partnered with the National Science Foundation to develop videos, activities, and teacher lesson plans highlighting the science and engineering of the Winter Games (https://www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/winterolympics/).The series of 10 videos focuses on such concepts as the biomedical engineering breakthroughs that help skiers like Lindsey Vonn recover faster from knee injuries and include speed skater Shani Davis demonstrating a bodysuit engineered to minimize friction and maximize his aerodynamic performance. Designed to enhance classroom instruction, both the NBC Learn and the Learning Network series will continue to inspire students for months to come.
Still, the Winter Olympics – which NBC says reached more Americans through more platforms than any previous Winter Games, including 61.8 million unique users who accessed NBC’s digital content – represent a missed opportunity to educate the general public about engineering. Did you see Shaun White’s dazzling half-pipe photo on the front page of the New York Times? It showed his snowboard deformed to an incredible degree! How high-performance equipment is designed to withstand such forces and deflect without breaking is a question that engineers could answer.
Imagine a Stanley Cup hockey playoff that included a pre-game interview with an engineer. The discussion could range from the evolution of the materials used in the highly engineered hockey sticks and puck to the protective gear that has increased player safety. Millions of viewers would see the benefits that engineering brings to their favorite team.
Indeed, sports and engineering generally go hand in hand. University of Illinois data-analytics expert Sheldon Jacobson, for example, recently applied a statistical method called goodness-of-fit testing to NCAA basketball tournament results from 1985 to 2010. He identified patterns in seed distribution in the Elite Eight, Final Four, and championship rounds, and then fit the pattern to a model to determine probabilities and odds. March Madness fans can evaluate their bracket choices by plugging their picks into his website: bracketodds.cs.illinois.edu.
How could engineers use future sporting competitions to better feature their impact? Americans need not wait until the 2016 Summer Olympics in Brazil. There’s baseball’s annual World Series, the NFL’s Super Bowl, and the NBA Finals along with the U.S. Tennis Open and the Master’s golf tournament. Let’s discover what we as engineers can do to showcase our profession to the millions of sports fans who will be tuning in. Play ball!
Rosemarie D. Wesson, Ph.D., P.E., is a program director in the National Science Foundation’s Directorate for Engineering and an adjunct professor of chemical engineering at the University of Maryland, College Park.