Sports and Wellness Engineering



Whether in competitive sport or everyday living, people look for ways to improve the performance of their equipment. For athletes, changes in the materials, design or construction methods can give them the advantage they need to turn silver into gold.

Similarly, by continually improving the design and materials used in mobility aids for the disabled, previous hurdles can be overcome and lives enriched. SAIT has emerged to be a leader in applied research in Sports and Wellness Engineering through projects such as:

Skeleton Sled Prototypes
Bi-directional Pedalling System
Wheelchair Front End Accessory

Contact

Projects

Skeleton Sled Prototypes
To encourage greater participation in the sport of skeleton sledding, Bobsleigh Canada Skeleton (BCS) engaged the expertise of SAIT faculty and staff to design a sled that would perform well at a reasonable cost. Long term, the plan is to work on fabricating high performance sleds to be used in Olympic competitions.

In December 2008, the first set of prototype development sleds were tested on the Calgary and Whistler tracks by Canadian Olympian Paul Boehm. Paul used the SAIT SST 1 Prototype sled as the forerunner for the first World Cup race held at the 2010 Olympic track in Whistler, B.C. and his times were within the top 10 World Cup times.

In the 2010 European Cup season, Eric Neilson raced to a 4th place ranking on a SAIT prototype sled and on November 6, he commandeered a 100 per cent SAIT sled to a podium finish. That silver medal at the National Championships led the way to the America's Cup race in Calgary on November 19 where four athletes finished in the top six using SAIT sleds.

A total of 22 sleds have been fabricated to date, and the project was featured on the Discovery Channel's Daily Planet which aired in early 2010. Articles on the project have been included in the Globe and Mail: College Research: from the Whistler Ice to the Yukon permafrost and SAIT's Alumni Link: Secrets of the Olympic skelton sled.

The success of the prototype sled program  has produced additional work with BCS, including the fabrication of a Dryland Treadmill Training Accessory. The device will provide athletes with an opportunity to do indoor, off-season training and develop their running skills and aerobic capacity while simulating a push start with their sleds.

Both the skeleton projects were funded through the Own the Podium (OTP) program and Principal Investigator, Dr. Alex Zahavich was a member of OTP's Top Secret research program.


Bi-Directional Pedalling System for Bicycles

The goal of this joint project with the University of Lethbridge was to build a prototype of a pedalling system that could be pedaled in both a clockwise and counter-clockwise rotation for pre-commercial development and proof of concept testing.

This unique pedaling system was developed to help athletes ride longer and strengthen more muscle groups in competition or pleasure rides. The project was a collaboration funded by the Southern Alberta Intellectual Property (SAIP) Network.

Wheelchair Front End Accessory
Getting around in the great outdoors could soon become a lot easier for the reported 180,000 Canadians who rely on a wheelchair for mobility, thanks to an applied research project between SAIT and Marvel Wheelchairs.

Applied Research has been working with this independent Canadian company to further develop and test a prototype off-road front caster wheel that will allow users to traverse obstacles up to 3/4" high, such as rocks, and travel smoothly over varied terrain.

With the help of SAIT's fabrication team and funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), a unique front-wheel assembly is being developed to allow Canadians with a physical disability to have a more active and engaged lifestyle.

Contact:

Brian Dorn, Jrny. Welder - Principal Investigator, Skeleton Sled Fabrication
Anthony Arcand - Principal Investigator, Adaptive Bobsleigh, Arial Hydrocarbon Survey System, Kuffen Luge