Sport through science
Tuesday 25 October 2005
David James, who studied mechanical engineering at uni, explains why science isn't just all about white coats and chemical labs!
n2k: What do you do?
David: I work for the University of Sheffield in the Sports Engineering Research Group. I’m involved in a few different research projects aiming to improve our understanding of sports equipment and to hopefully make it a little better. This year however I’ve been mainly travelling round the country and abroad giving lectures to young people on the role of technology and engineering in sport.
n2k: What's a typical day like for you?
David: I normally ride my BMX into work and sometimes meet a mate at the skate park just behind the University before stepping into the office.
Recently I’ve been developing some quite complex mathematical models that aim to fully describe how different sports balls bounce off different surfaces.
After a morning bouncing balls in the lab or sitting behind the computer I usually have to sprint off to the station and catch a train to the next venue on my lecture tour.
My lectures are really good fun; I use loads of video footage of different sports and bring along as many props as I can handle.
Personally I find it quite amusing watching the faces of other passengers as I try to find a place to store my full size Javelin on the train!
n2k: What are you working on at the moment?
David: I’ve been applying physics and engineering knowledge to the sport of cricket for four years and counting. England and Wales have a problem with the area of hard turf in the centre of cricket field known as the pitch.
I’ve been trying to unravel some of the mysteries of why cricket balls bounce off the turf in the way that they do, dispel a few myths and give grounds staff some good advice based on science.
For three summer seasons, I travelled the country visiting county cricket grounds and filmed ball impacts with the pitch during live county championship matches. We found that different pitches made the cricket balls bounce in different ways.
As well as filming the ball impacts during county matches we took soil samples from the pitches at the end of play. From these soil samples we were able to determine how the cricket pitch was originally made and how the grounds staff had prepared the surface for that specific match.
n2k: What ambitions do you have?
David: My burning ambition in my life at work is to conduct similar research to that which I am undertaking at the present, but in the southern hemisphere!
Australia and New Zealand produce some of the finest cricket pitches in the world but using radically different techniques to those of the UK. I think it would be a useful project and something tells me that it would be pretty enjoyable too!
n2k: What's the best thing about your job?
David: The best thing about my job has to be getting out and about, visiting new places, meeting new people and giving my lectures. The UK’s great but just in the past year my work has sent me to Japan, Jordan, Belfast and Dublin, and California.
For more details on how you can get into a scientific career, take a look at the NOISE web site.
