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Sport Surfboards, hovercraft, skateboards, & pogo sticks. What do they have in common? They are great examples of simple innovations. We showcase stories of young people who are improving old ideas, and coming up with completely new ones. While you're listening to your favourite music, why not take a ride on an underwater scooter? The ScubaDoo lets you check out what's under the sea without having to learn to scuba dive. Or if you like to fish, check out the River Lake Fishing Aid which was invented by a young Australian. Science and technology are affecting sport in many ways. Did you know that Steven Bradbury was skating on Australian made ice skates when he won Australia's first Winter Olympics gold medal in 2002? Check out how Brisbane company, Revolutionary Boot Company, used rapid prototyping to give them the edge when improving skate design. In the not too distant future, you won't need a human coach there to train you anymore, your clothes will be able to train you, no matter what sport like. Australian science has combined with Aussie sports to create a device, called Traqua, which will enable swimming coaches to better monitor their athletes training. Maybe the Intelligent Knee Sleeve will dramatically decrease knee injuries when it soon becomes commercially available. The next time you get your dog a flea collar, spare a thought that the insect you are to get rid of could actually revolutionise sporting equipment and sports shoes. The CSIRO has created some flea rubber made from a flea protein that could do just that. Sick of shoes that just don't fit? You can now get your foot scanned and have a pair of shoes printed out for you which will fit your foot exactly. This is a new technology being used in the UK that will allow shoes to be made even lighter. Have you ever spent hours in your backyard building yourself a skating ramp? If you have you probably know how popular you can suddenly become with all your friends wanting to come over to try it out. Corban Walls builds skate ramps but has taken them one step further and created a company called Remain Industries, which provides portable skating ramps for hire. The Dirtsurfer can be ridden on dirt, sand, grass, paved road and pretty much wherever you dare to take it. Is listening to music while playing sport or training cheating? What do you get when you cross a skateboard and a scooter? Answer: an adari board. Sport and study do mix. Just ask olympic ice skater Mark McNee, who has developed a new blade for ice-skates. An solution called Headzone has been developed to allow professional waterskiing coach's to talk to their waterskiers while they are out training in the water! Shinfin- The Flipper Revolution has begun! Background Notes A brief synopsis of each of the sport items in our shows and links to our references.
Back Rack
Jackson Richards, who is 15 years old, invented this after his parents complained about transporting him to and from the surf every morning. Not wanting to give up surfing, Jackson invented the Back Rack, which is a sling that attaches to the tip and tail of the board then over your back. The great thing about this invention is that the movement of the wearer is not restricted at all. So Jackson can ride a bike, scooter or even a skateboard with his surf board on his back. Computer surfboard Inventors out there have taken a touch-screen computer, made it water proof and embedded it onto the body of a surfboard. So you can literally …..Surf the net! There must be other more productive reasons, but you’ll have to figure them out for yourselves! Yes it is for real, check it out. Aluminium surfboard Sick of having his board snap in big swells and damaged by the sun and the surf, keen surfer Ron developed a way to make his surfboard much stronger. By applying a very thin layer of aluminium to the foam core of his surfboard, then coating it with lacquer, Ron’s surfboards are now a whole lot stronger. References
Return to top. Brakeboards Ever used your face as brakes? Sick of grinding your foot to the bone to stop your deck? Thanks to a young Aussie you can now slow to a smooth stop with the flick of your heel. The Brakeboard is a great example of innovation and business-sense in young folk today. Flowlab boards Group of young guys who were really keen snowboarders and wanted to be able to do it all year round. They changed the design of existing skateboards to make them feel much more like riding a snowboard. Instead of using the traditional four wheels, two at each end, they put eight wheels at each end on an arc of metal. This design means that the board leans at a much greater angle than a normal skateboard when turning, more like the turning of a snowboard. These guys set up a company called Flowlab and they sell these boards all over the world. Scorpion Electro The scorpion electro-board is a cross between a skateboard and a scooter but with a small electric motor. Designed by Sam Deslandes while studying at the University of South Australia the board won an Australian design award last year. Acceleration and braking is controlled via the handle located at the rear end of the board. The small rechargeable motor can power the board to a top speed of around 25 km/h. Despite only having three wheels the board is steered the same way as a normal skateboard. Wheelman Bushpig: Motorised Skateboard
The Wheelman Bushpig is another example of great innovation by Australians. References
Return to top. For those who have always wanted to fly… Flying wakeboard In the latest in Australian wakeboarding technology: a board that can fly! The wakeboard, called the Sharkski, lifts up above the surface of the water using high-pressure systems that build up under the wings. When the rider reaches speeds around 40 km/h they literally fly through the air with enough stability to allow the rider to stand, kneel, and to pull all kinds of tricks. Keep an eye out for the Sharkski…its about to take off! Hoverpod
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The Flybar is like a hardcore pogo stick. Fit coordinated humans can jump higher than a metre and people have been known to get around 2 metres of air using the aircraft-grade aluminium Flybar. The extreme pogo stick uses an elastomeric spring system (12 big rubber bands, to put it simply) to capture and release energy and the springing feels similar to a trampoline in operation. It’s a simple modification to the humble pogo, but it’s made a lot of difference to the fun of it. Anything lying around that you could modify? Reference
Return to top. No need to learn to scuba dive this summer. You can grab yourself an underwater scooter and cruise around with your own air-tank in shallow water, checking out the fish and coral at a motorised pace. Kind of like driving an upside-down see-through bucket underwater! Reference
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Her inspiration came when she would go fishing with her dad who would send her back to the bank to collect bait or to deposit caught fish. Now Candice, who was tired of these frequent journeys to and from the bank, invented a solution to this problem. The River Lake Fishing Aid is a floating box which can store bait, tackle and caught fish, but instead of being stowed on the bank, this box floats next to the person who is fishing. This just goes to show that inspiration can come from anywhere!
Return to top. Ice Skates and Rapid Prototyping
To improve skate design, Clint used a technique called rapid prototyping. The first step in rapid prototyping is to make a computer drawing of the object you want to build. The computer then slices the drawing into very thin layers about 100 μm (microns) thick, about as thick as a human hair. After that it sends a drawing of each layer to a machine that builds the layer. This continues layer by layer until the object is finished. It's a bit like inkjet printing, only in 3D. Rapid prototyping is very quick and very precise and can make complex objects that other methods (eg. injection moulding or carving) cannot. It is a good way to quickly build an object to check if it is the right size before doing a production run. At first only certain types of plastics could be used in rapid prototyping but engineers have found ways to use metals and other types of plastics. These days rapid prototyping is used to make replicas of bones for doctors to practice on, artwork, jewellery, car parts, mobile phone cases... References
Return to top. When you’re at school, your teachers boss you around. When you’re at work, your bosses boss you around. When you’re at home, your parents boss you around. When you’re out playing sports, your clothes boss you around. Yes, you read correctly, your clothes boss you around. In the not to distant future, you will be bossed around by your clothes. Researchers from the Netherlands are developing clothes that can monitor what you’re doing while you play your favourite sport, and tell you how you could improve by vibrating at specific areas of your body. It’s called the ‘Haptic Sports Garment’. The vibrations are supposed to remind you of things like using the correct posture, using the right muscle group and to help you maintain an optimum speed when you start to slack off. Apparently this is better than having a real life human coach standing there yelling at you constantly, and telling you what you’re doing wrong because it does take a while for the shouting to reach you and for you to “slave” yourself to their demands. Currently, the researchers are only designing clothes for rowing, speed-skating and soccer, but in the future, there should be clothes for other sports as well, so don’t throw away your old sports coaches yet. References
Return to top. Have you ever wished you could be a better swimmer? You’re not the only one, Australia’s elite swimmers are always trying to improve - they train heaps both in and out of the pool, they have the best coaches in the world and even fancy swimsuits that make them faster. Now, thanks to scientists working with the Australian Institute of Sport, they can track every move they make in the water using a small device called Traqua. Swimmers wear a small pack, similar to an iPod, in the back of their bathers. It has motion sensors inside that record information about the swimmers movements and send it straight to a computer. This gives the coach and the swimmer instant access to information like stroke rate, the distance covered and split times which can help them to analyse technique and plan future training sessions. In the lead up to the Commonwealth Games this could be just the edge Australia’s swimmers need to go for gold! References
Return to top. Nature provides the inspiration for so many inventions, the CSIRO has recently looked to the insect world for inspiration for a new type of rubber. Dr Chris Elvin from the CSIRO’s livestock industries department has invented near perfect rubber inspired by….wait for it…FLEAS!! Fleas, as you may know, are really good jumpers (as in things that jump, not the clothes you wear on cold days). They can actually jump more than 100 times the length of their bodies. The reason they can do it is because of a substance called resilin, which is an elastic substance made of cross-linked protein chains. Dr Chris Elvin and his team have actually worked out a way of getting this protein and turning it into a solid substance. This will have heaps of uses for anything from medical applications, to super sport shoes and even really really bouncy, bouncy balls. The reason that this rubber is so cool is not because of its bounciness but rather because it never loses its bounce.... you might say it’s really good at bouncing back. References Return to top. In recent years there have been a lot of advances in printing technology. Printers have been used to print edible menus, print living tissue and now you can even get a pair of shoes printed. This may sound a little like science fiction but it is actually happening. A London-based company called Prior 2 Lever (P2L) have developed a technique that allows them to print the layers of a shoe that are then joined together using a laser. References
Return to top. Portable Skate Ramp- Remain Industries
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Surf the Dirt What’s going on? Who’s doing it? How do I get into it? Extra Info/References
Music in Sport - Is it Cheating? Will listening to Eskimo Joe or Pink while you run make you a better athlete? If so, is it cheating? What’s going on? Music has been involved in sport for a long time - rowers use a drum beat to help them stay in time, some footballers listen to ‘Eye of the Tiger’ to fire themselves up before a game, and archers have been known to crank up the classical tunes to help them relax. Listening to music while exercising can improve your performance by up to 20%, especially if you’re doing something repetitive like long distance running. Now there’s even the prospect of having a tiny mp3 player placed under the skin, so that athletes can listen to music whenever they like. So, what do you think, is it cheating? Who’s doing it? How do I get into it? Extra Info/References
Return to top. Mike Hodgkinson is a 20 year old University student from Sydney. Mike was sick of walking to uni everyday and with his love of skateboarding, surfing and snowboarding he figured he would be able to make an easier mode of transport. Impressed with the manoeuvrability of a scooter, Mike decided that is what he wanted in a skateboard, and invented a two-wheeled skateboard in his family shed. “Essentially what I’ve got is a scooter without handlebars. It’s sort of a fish shaped deck, and it looks cruisy. It’s got two wheels on the bottom, both in line…The rear wheel is fixed and the front wheel is on a castor like a trolley wheel and spring loaded.” Funding for the prototype and the first set of boards were made as a result of a $5000 scholarship from the university which Mike attends. References Where to from here? Furthermore a degree in Engineering may be suited to you, and many universities Australia wide offer degrees in Engineering. The pre-requisites would be dependent upon which university you wish to attend but good subjects to choose are maths, physics and chemistry. Return to top. Speed Demon Graduates, at last What’s going on? Who’s doing it? Mark McNee has competed in 2 winter Olympics, while completing his uni degree. He graduated last year and has been nominated as valedictorian of his year, even though Mark openly admits he will probably have the lowest grade point average of any valedictorian yet, as an Olympian study was not really his highest priority. How do I get into it? Reference Return to top. Bright and Beaming Basketball Shirt What’s going on? The Jerseys have panels on the side, front, shoulders and the back that are all used to communicate different aspects of the game. As a player scores more, the panels on the side of the torso light up to communicate this to their fellow team mates. Panels on the shoulder indicate a player’s foul count, panels on the chest light up when there is one minute left of game time and the panel on the back lights up to show the winning team. The Jerseys have been tested on basketball players and have so far achieved positive results. They found that player’s awareness of the information was increased as was spectator’s knowledge. They also found that the time warnings and the display of the winning team could markedly change the player’s behaviours and motivate teams. TeamAwear was tested using basketball because player-specific information changes rapidly during the sport and because no physical contact is involved. But Mitchell believes football, soccer, volleyball, netball, cricket and boxing could all benefit from similar outfits. The shirts are only at the prototype stage but have been tested in controlled situations with a referee and a small crowd with positive results. So, we won’t be seeing them in professional games just yet. Who’s doing it? Mitchell Page is an Honours Student in the Centre of Design computing and Cognition at The University of Sydney. How do I get into it? References
Return to top. If you’ve ever tried to talk to someone across a crowded room or in a really noisy area you’ll understand how frustrating it can be. Imagine if you faced this problem everyday. Mark Ellis got sick of yelling to water-skier’s he was trying to coach, and having to wait for them to get back to the shore before he could talk to them. So rather than continuing to be frustrated Mark came up with a solution. He’s developed a system called Headzone which is a waterskiing helmet that has a receiver and speaker in it, so that his water-skier’s can hear all of his instructions. What's going on? Mark Ellis, an Australian waterskiing coach, has come up with a system to help coaches communicate with athletes while they’re playing sport. Headzone uses a microphone and transmitter at the coach’s end and a receiver and speaker in a waterskiing helmet to allow the coach to talk to the athlete from as far away as three kilometres. Who's doing it? Mark Ellis is a waterskiing coach from New South Wales who got sick of yelling across the water and waiting for his students to come back to shore so that he could give them instructions and advice. Mark had his idea featured on The New Inventors on the ABC and has started a business called Headzone. How do I get into it? If you have an idea for an invention you should enter the Questacon Smart Moves Invention Convention. It’s a competition we run every year and if you get selected you’ll get a free trip to Canberra and learn a bunch of skills that could help you turn your idea into a reality. References Return to top. Shinfin- The Flipper Revolution has begun!If you’re a body boarder or a keen swimmer then more than likely you have used flippers at some stage to help you gain some speed. One of the biggest problems that go hand in hand with flippers is that quite often you trip over them, and body boarders generally have to enter the ocean backwards to avoid this. Walking backwards is very impractical and more importantly takes up valuable boarding time. An Australian company has come up with a solution to this problem, with a man called Marc Lee as their driving force. Inspiration struck Marc when he was sitting on the beach watching people struggle with their flippers and admiring how surfers on top of their streamlined boards could hit the waves so much quicker. Marc developed a new kind of flipper, which he calls Shinfin with its main defining feature being that you strap the flippers to your shins and not your feet. This eliminates the struggle of walking in flippers, whilst allowing a more powerful kicking stoke. The Shinfin design further reduces the effect of shin injuries and foot cramps which are often associated with the original style of flippers. It has taken many prototypes and a lot of setbacks but Marc has finally come up with a marketable product which he sells from home. What’s going on? Shinfin is a new design of an old idea. It is a new style of flipper which allows the wearer to swim more effectively without hindering the way they walk. It also allows for a much more natural kicking style in the water, and reduces injuries surrounding flipper use. Who’s doing it? Marc Lee is the developer of Shinfin. He is originally from Cambridge in England but now lives in Australia with his wife and children. Marc was always a keen inventor, and enjoyed pulling things apart since he was very young. At school the subjects he was most interested in were subjects that taught him how things worked, like maths, physics, engineering drawing, design, woodwork and metalwork. His dream job was to be involved in inventing, designing, and making better things that people could use. He naturally gravitated towards this and never really considered other career fields. Marc stands by the belief that you have to try many ideas to end up with a few good ones, and along the way you can have a lot of fun. How do I get into it? If you’re interested in how things work it’s a good idea at high school to do topics such as maths, physics, science, drawing, design and technology, woodwork and metalwork. At a University level, degrees in Engineering, or Industrial Design could be a strong choice. Advanced Diplomas in these area's at Tafe could also be a sound basis. Also having an open mind, and being a creative person is the most important part . Extra Info/ReferencesReturn to top.
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