The engineering of Sport 11 – 2016 ISEA Conference
We’re smack in the middle of a very busy sports summer, with –amongst others– the European Championships Football and Athletics, the Olympic Games and the Tour de France. From Monday the 11th until Thursday the 14th of July, over 200 scientist and students from the field of Sports Engineering came together in Delft from over the whole world for the 11th conference of the International Sports Engineering Association (ISEA).
Tuesday July 12th, a short impression
After the 2016 ISEA Conference opening by Conference Chair Frans van der Helm, Harry van Dorenmalen, Chair of Top Team Sport, stressed “The Dutch sports knowledge and innovation agenda opts for success in a selected area, where we can make the difference on the global playing field. Being a small country, acceleration is possible by focussing on heavily and seriously cooperating with all present at ISEA. We learn to invest in what is relevant and dare to say what is crap and leave it be. Collecting and analysing data, sharing the data and using it to predict what is needed for future success.”
Louis Vertegaal, Director of Chemical and Exact Sciences at NWO – the Netherlands organisation for scientific research, advanced the importance of the Olympic Cycle for continuous research and better performances, for better social and economic values and innovation. Many sport innovation projects for Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020 have been initiated and facilitated to visit each others’ universities and governments.
We are together with 230 participants from 23 nations; let us share our knowledge ‘by using multiple ways of communication direct like the Dutch, modest as the Japanese, to the point as the Germans and with our hearts as Italians do.’ – Programme Chair, Arjen Jansen –
Prof. Dr. Robert Reiner talked us through the Cybathlon: an event to promote the development of usercentered assistive devices. In the USA, 100.000 amputations take place per year. For medical institutions, governments and the amputees themselves, research on improving the quality of life for the amputees is relevant. Many non-powered devices have been developed due to extensive research. The next step is to look into the possibility to make powered devices, which has been impossible so far, as we can still not translated the intention of the user to the actuator in a satisfying way.
Robert Reiner initiated Cybathlon, an event where academia and sports industry can participate to show a larger public how robotic assistive devices can improve the quality of life for the disabled. Contestants are judged on the number of completed tests and their respective difficulties, , with the time to compete as a secondary measurement, in case of a tie. The Cybathlon will be a yearly event; next in line are London (2017), Delft (2018), Seoul (2019), Tokyo (2020).