"Smart blades" for studying skating

[skategeek]

Cool article!

http://www.thestar.com/sports/skating/2014/10/21/researchers_examining_cause_of_injuries_in_figure_skaters.html

[MimiG]

Yes, I'm very curious to read how the on-ice tests go... interesting project!

[Loops]

That is really cool.  I'd love to see their results, too!

[Query]

Gee  , I hoped you had designed some blades that would make it easy to skate, because the built in electronics would do most of the work.

Ummm - doesn't seem like the typical force in a jump landing would be the typical force in an unplanned fall.

To a first approximation, the force is inversely proportional to the distance over which you absorb the impact.

When you land on your skates, you presumably bend your knees and ankles and other joints to make the impact more gradual. You can do similar things in falls - but if you don't practice falls enough, you might not. In fact, people frequently respond to falls by going stiff, which greatly decreases the distance, and greatly increases the effective force.

So I'm not sure that the experiment measures the forces that occur in falls.

But it will measure the forces that occur in normal take-offs and landings.