Engineers Make a Difference: Motivating Students to Pursue an Engineering Education

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Aerospace Engineering Teacher's Guide

Mechanical Engineering Teacher's Guide

Engineering Principles Teacher's Guide

Engineering Graphics Teacher's Guide

Aeronautical Engineering Teacher's Guide

Civil Engineering Teacher's Guide

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During the Beijing Olympics I heard that there are 4000 engineers behind all the equipment of every Olympic Games. Wow! I love the Olympics – especially since the sports casters started taking more about the technology behind the equipment. In fact, I enjoyed it so much that I wrote a book called High Tech Hot Shots: Careers in Sports Engineering about the engineering of sports equipment and how to get a job in the industry. It's a wonderful complement to Sports Science and Engineering curriculum. In honor of the Olympics, we put a free sample online.

The topic has intrigued me ever since I found out that most sports equipment companies won’t hire engineers that don’t play the sport. To be a successful sports engineer you must understand the sport, the performance criteria and the perception of the fans. You must appreciate the mental state of both the athlete and the audience. Equipment must be designed to keep the athlete safe and lessen injury. The social appeal of color, function and trend must be considered. The materials should be the best for the conditions or developed to advance the sport. And lastly, the equipment must be thoroughly tested and evaluated.

Being a sports engineer is highly creative and there is no one engineering degree that is better suited than another. For example, many sports require helmets. The most common engineers that work on helmet design are:

• Mechanical engineers - may design systems for manufacturing, motion analysis or impact testing. May also be involved in building and testing prototypes;
• Biomedical engineers - may design systems to analyze the human body wearing the helmet for neck and spine injury prevention. May research the motion of many sports to determine the requirements for helmet design;
• Chemical or Materials Engineers - may work to develop or design new light weight materials that will be more comfortable and withstand greater impacts or forces;
• Manufacturing engineers - may design systems or processes for manufacturing helmets more efficiently;
• Computer engineers - may design software or hardware to aid in pressure or impact detection analysis, manufacturing processes or information systems;
• Industrial engineers - may maintain bills of materials and routings information, cost standards and recommend pricing for new products. May also be involved in training certain manufacturing techniques.

A passion for a particular sport and a degree in engineering can take you places you may have never imagined - possibly the front row of an Olympic event!