Checkerspot x Autodesk: A Better Future for Snow Sports (and more)

In the summer of 2023, our field trip from the Salt Lake City ASM summer teacher camp was to WNDR / Checkerspot.

When the trip was initially described to me, I thought we were going to see how snowboards and skis are made. I'm not a winter sport guy, so I figured it could be interesting but not necessarily my scene.

When we got there, though, I found that WNDR - the winter sports equipment maker and retailer - wasn't the real business. The real business was Checkerspot, a materials company that was producing polymer raw materials from microalgae as a replacement for petroleum sourcing. 

That company needed some way to demonstrate the utility of their materials, so they found a consumer-focused industry with high margins and a strong environmental conscience among its consumers. In the Salt Lake City area, skiing and snowboarding made sense for them because the final products - the snowboards and skis themselves - are high users of polymers in their composite materials, and the people who buy tend to be willing to spend a little more to buy environmentally friendly products.

The tour was outstanding, and I highly recommend getting to see their process if you're ever out in Salt Lake City. You can see some of their facility in this next video.

How Disc Golf Discs Are Made (MVP Manufacturing Tour) - Smarter Every Day 301

Summer of George!

I do want Destin to get back to making shorter videos like his initial, six-and-a-half-minute Prince Rupert's drops video, but I understand that he's just working to optimize for the algorithm. 

At least the Smarter Every Day videos are quality videos from tip to tail, showing brilliant views and asking questions along the way of the entire manufacturing process.

I learn so much from all of Destin's videos.

And I'm going to get myself some of those MVP discs. 

The Controversy Behind Nike’s Vaporfly Running Shoe, Explained | WSJ

Anything more than totally naked sporting competition is essentially a materials question.

Wooden tennis racquets gave way (briefly) to aluminum and then to composite racquets.

Wooden baseball bats became aluminum then composites.

Similar progressions took place for pole vaulting and nearly every other sport.

In running, however, the materials question mostly shows up in the running shoes, and Nike's Vaporfly is the current materials leader in that realm.

More videos after the jump...

COLD HARD SCIENCE: SLAPSHOT Physics in Slow Motion - Smarter Every Day 112

For me, the big payoffs in this video come from the high speed videography at 2:30 and again at 5:20. Seeing the composite hockey stick flex and store up energy then spring forward even ahead of the player's hand when that stored energy is release is just gorgeous and shows the advantages of composite materials in sports as compared to older, wooden sticks.

Plus, I'm down for just about any video that Destin posts.

It's a pile of mining waste. Want to go skiing on it?

Typically mining tailing piles are not destinations to see.

They're usually filled with heavy metals and lots of other pollutants, but this pile is mostly inert sand...and it's an off-season ski slop.

That's pretty cool. 

Why do Baseball Bats Break?

Oh, hey, Grady. Good to see you.

In this video - about why major league baseball saw a sharp uptick in broken bats (and subsequently an uptick of injuries caused by flying bat shards) in the early and mid-2000's - Grady gets into the differences in ash (the wood used to make almost every pre-2000 bat) and maple (a wood that became popular - not poplar - with ball players in the early 2000's after Barry Bonds used one to break the HR record).

He then goes into the non-isotropic nature of wood and how ash and maple are very different. I guess the lessons learned in making ash bats didn't translate cleanly into making maple bats. It doesn't mean that maple bats are inherently less safe, just that they need to be made - and particularly marked - differently than do ash bats.

Really, changing the material requires changing the production and use strategies for that object?

Who would've guessed it?

Pole vaulting - physics, material science, miracle

One of my students in chemistry recently picked up my copy of Materials in Sports Equipment (vol 1) by Jenkins (speaking of which, three questions...one, does anybody know if a Vol 2 ever came out? And did you know an updated edition just came out in May 2019? Does anybody know how different the updated version is?)

He skimmed the first few pages and came to me with questions about the energy transfer in pole vaulting. That sent me looking for videos about the energy transfer in - and the material science of - pole vaulting.

The first video I found - the above one - goes through the energy transfers spectacularly, explaining via stick figure drawings just how the energy changes forms in the course of the run up and eventual vault itself.

That, then, sent me looking some more for videos about the materials of the vault pole.




I couldn't find a corny joke either at the beginning or end of the How It's Made video, so that was a little disappointing. But I did notice that some of the How It's Made footage was in the LSU video up top.



...but I will say the production value on the "How It's Made" video is higher than this less fancy video showing how Gill makes pole vaults.



Then I started to go further down the rabbit hole and found just how steam is involved in the production of vault poles, something that clearly the American Boiler Manufacturer Association must care about deeply.

And I'm really curious about the Essx pole video which seems to show some materials above and beyond fiberglass - possibly carbon fiber and what seems to look like saran wrap (?). I kind of wish their video wasn't entirely wordless.




...and because I figure somebody came here to see this, I'll include a compilation of pole vault breaks. Heads up, though, that nobody in this video gets seriously injured.

The Physics of Slingshots 2 | Smarter Every Day 57

I keep wanting to tell Destin that he's gonna shoot his eye out.

But it looks like he still has his predator vision at the end of this video, so that's his business as to whether he wears goggles or not.

At 2:13, Destin shows a graph of the potential and kinetic energy of the ball/band system as the band stretches and releases.

At 4:39, he then uses actual data/video to show that a tapered slingshot band accelerates the bullet faster than does an un-tapered band.

Then, at 5:00, our favorite - the stress-strain curve - shows up.

Sadly, some of the links in the video description to learn more about hysteresis, for example, are dead.

Destin got two videos out of his visit with Jorg (check the slingshot channel for even more). The other video doesn't have as much material science content, but it's still fun, and it shows some momentum and energy calculation with a gigantic slingshot.

COLD HARD SCIENCE: SLAPSHOT Physics in Slow Motion - SmarterEveryDay

Yes, a hockey player with a missing tooth is frighteningly stereotypical.

The sight of the hockey stick at full flex - in motion at about 2:35 - is outstanding...as is the idea that the player likes his stick 'whippier'.

I'm not a hockey player, but I was a tennis player, and I understand the same idea in a different application. Players can choose how much tension they want in their strings when the tennis racket is strung. Stringing at a lower tension allows the ball to deflect the strings more, creating more of a trampoline effect and generating more power. The cost to that is a decrease in control - worse aim - because of that increased power.

Here's a second video going through the same physics - for the first seven minutes anyway. After the first seven, we get a look at the physics of a wrist shot and a hockey player's workout.

Personally, I prefer Destin's enthusiasm.

A bunch of d3o videos

I haven't the foggiest idea what you need to do to be safe on a motorcycle. I guess my first step would be to not get on the motorcycle, but that's your call.

The above video goes through the advantages and disadvantages of the various materials used to provide protection in a motorcycle jacket: silicon (1:09), thermoplastics (1:40 - though the description of thermoplastics leaves something to be desired), foam (2:32), and viscoelastic materials (3:27) like d3o (SAS Tec, TFArmor, APS Air [though I think that's basically an airbag]- other brands he mentions).

The host's description of d3o is, however, outstanding. He does mention 'grade three' which is a giveaway that he's Canadian.

Mizuno Grain Flow Forging: Factory Tour

Chris Voshall walks around during most of the video. It wasn't until I watched the video for a third time that I saw his title, "Golf Club Engineer."

Not that there's anything wrong with faking being a golfer or anything. Heck, I've been doing it for years. (ba da bum - rimshot!)

Seriously, though this video does a brilliant job explaining the forging process from billet to primary forging through trimming (and repeating the process) and in explaining why forging works (see the wood splinter/metal crystal grain analogy at about 0:40).

(By the way, that whole "I've been doing it for years" is a lie. It was just too easy a joke to make, though. Really, I'm pretty much just into frisbee and miniature golfing. In total, I think I've played 27 holes of real golf. Thanks, Brian and Brian for taking me out for those two rounds.)

Pinkbike vists the Santa Cruz Test Lab Video

Edit: Looks like the video has been taken down from YouTube. It's still available (but not embedable sadly) on this webpage which includes a lot of analysis of the tests.

break it!

Break it!

BREAK IT!

Joe Graney might want to talk to somebody about how to look like he's actually enjoying his hosting duties, because he's lucky enough to be standing there and breaking the snot out of both aluminum and carbon fiber bike frames (with a screw drive at 0:47 and then with dropped weights at 2:45).

Interestingly, the sudden breaks (from dropped weights) don't look all that different, but the slow breaks look very different.

Thanks, by the way, to Frank Marks, Director of Engineering for Utah Test and Training Range, who showed this at our graduation in Salt Lake City last week.

Athletics Engineered: Hockey sticks, a material issue

So, Professor Daehn, we meet again.

Admittedly, that three-point bend tester at 2:40 isn't exactly the death laser from Goldfinger, but it would probably sting a bit.

Here we get to see one aspect of the overlap between the world of athletics and the materials engineering department at Ohio State University, showing us some of the work that students get to do in the program.

Admittedly, I was looking for a bit more of how hockey sticks are made, either the old-school, wooden ones...



...or the more modern, graphite reinforced kind...

And you're welcome for the 'you'll want to stick around for this one' from that second video.

Golf Ball 70,000 fps 150mph

Look, a golf ball squished against a steel plate.

Admittedly, it's a practice golf ball - something like this - which explains the full-out squish and deformation of the above golf ball.



Then there's what a real golf ball looks hitting steel. The info on YouTube (posted by the USGA, itself) says that it's hitting at 150mph and was filmed at 40,000 frames per second.

That's a little more believable.

The Moment of Impact: An Inside Look at Titelist Gof Ball R&D

I wonder if the machine hooks its drive when it lifts its head?

Honestly, I'm a miniature golfer myself, having only ever played 27 holes of f''real golf. I'm thinking that during those twenty-seven holes, I didn't have a whole lot of shots that looked anything like these super slo-mo shots that we get to see in this video.

Seeing highlights of the R&D testing that Titleist does in perfecting their golf balls is pretty cool, though.

World Cup Chemistry: The Science Behind the Brazuca Ball - Reactions

The American Chemical Society worked with Compound Interest to produce this video on the chemistry of the polymers involved in producing the World Cup soccer futbol ball, the brazuca.

Oh, and am I too late to root for Australia in this year's World Cup?

The Chemistry of the World Cup Ball

Apparently there's some sort of football futbol tournament going on in South America this month. I assume that there's something I don't understand about the game because that ball up above doesn't look like the pigskin, oblong spheroid that I'm used to.

Wait, they're playing soccer? Oh, that's different. That makes more sense.

It's apparently a pretty involved bit of chemistry in trying to make the ball as perfect as they can, as non-water-absorbant, as perfectly round, as free from drugs and cheating and shoulder-biting as it can be.

Check out the full-sized pdf of the infographic at this link and the original post - with a lot more chemical explanation - here.

Compound Interest is a British blog through which Andy Brunning, a chemistry teacher with a flair for graphic design, posts outstanding chemistry-themed infographics.

Science Lowers Shattering Risk at Home Plate

Image source

From the New York Times...

Welington Castillo smashed a double for the Chicago Cubs late in a game in the 2010 season, his bat exploding on impact with the ball. A long shard of wood flew at a teammate, Tyler Colvin, sprinting home from third base, impaling him a few inches from his heart. Though Colvin scored, his season was over.

That's not Welington Castillo or Tyler Colvin there to the right. That's Hanley Ramirez breaking his bat in a game June 19, 2013. The video of the Tyler Colvin incident can be found on YouTube, though.

I grew up just a few miles from the Hillerich & Bradsby Louisville Slugger factory in Jeffersonville, Indiana, so I can vouch that we've been using wooden baseball bats since at least April, 1975 (and probably longer than that). It would seem like there wouldn't be much room for improvement in wooden bat technology. Sure there are composite bats and aluminum bats and carbon fiber bats, but those aren't for the big leagues. The big leaguers use wooden bats, and wood is wood. It grows, we cut it, we shape it.



In the early 2000's, however, traditional ash bats began to give way to maple bats, favored most famously by Barry Bonds. The maple bats felt harder, stronger, more powerful - perhaps truthfully, perhaps in an example of placebo effect. The important aspect for this article is that maple bats didn't just shatter; they exploded.

Hence the room for materials science, finding a way to make a better maple bat.

Simple Golf Tip

The Turbo Encabulator is a brilliant bit of performance gibberish. It's also our standard opener at the ASM summer workshops. We use it to illustrate that technical language without context, without understanding, without meaning is useless. Yes, you can describe the marzul veins and the pre-framulated amulite, but that doesn't mean those things exist or mean anything at all.

And just because you know to snap load your power package that doesn't mean your power cumulator isn't going to break down.

Personally, I'm partial to grip it and rip it.

On track with SAP - Composites

Concerns in the faster and lighter areas drastically outweigh the cheaper ones when it comes to a Formula 1 racecar (a palindrome, by the way). To that end, the engineers use a ridiculous amount of high-technology materials in the efforts to shave an ounce or two from the car's weight. The most stunning comment in this video came about 0:58 for me - the chassis only weighs 45 kilograms.

I know freshman - little freshman - at my school who outweigh the chassis of a Formula 1 racecar.

What the heck?