Bobsled Start Simulator brings high-tech to Olympics in Salt Lake City

Jack Raplee
ASME NEWS

A Bobsled Start Simulator — designed with the assistance of five ASME members — helped the U.S. Olympic Bobsled Team in its quest for the gold last month during the Olympic Games in Salt Lake City, Utah.

The Gold Team, as the simulator design team was nicknamed by ASME Fellow Arthur G. Erdman, included ASME members Will Durfee, Peter McMurry and James Ramsey, who are all mechanical engineering department faculty members at the University of Minnesota. The team, which Erdman headed, included several other university faculty, students and alumni.

The simulator project began early in March 2001, when Bonny Warner, a three-time Olympic luger who took up bobsledding in 1990, was looking for a biomechanical solution to help with the bobsled start.

A Minnesota alumnus serving on the U.S. Olympic Committee directed Warner to Erdman.
Erdman, who is the Institute of Technology Distinguished Professor in the University of Minnesota's mechanical engineering department, came up with an idea for a custom-designed bobsled simulation system that used a high-end treadmill.

Within only a few weeks, Erdman began to recruit members for the Minnesota Gold Team who would design and test a land-based race simulator. The team, which consisted of 22 people, brought in expertise from out side the university.

A fifth ASME member, Troy Nickel, a project leader with Endura Tec Systems Corp. of Minnetonka, Minn., provided a software and hardware interface with the simulator's accelerator and treadmill. Aspen Research Group Ltd. of Glenwood Springs, Colo. contributed approximately $47,000 in resources to design and build the final product. Ergotron Inc. of St. Paul, Minn., contributed expertise in software design.

By the end of the month, members of the design team outlined specific goals for how the project should develop, listing the specific needs of such a simulator.

American bobsledder Bonny Warner tests the start simulator designed by Art Erdman and his team of engineers and analysts.

 

Among the "must haves" was the need to determine the optimum height for a start handle, a means of connecting that handle to a treadmill, a bar against which to push for training, a completion deadline of the end of May, and a portable design.

"Within six weeks, we had our first prototype," Erdman said. "By May [2001], we were able to install a system at the Salt Lake City training facility."

Warner was invited to test the simulator so that necessary adjustments could be made to how she approached her start.

"The simulator helped me to change my running style," Warner said. "First, I got faster foot contact, which gave me more force. Then I drove my legs harder and my feet didn't come off the ice as high."

Use of the simulator in training led to refinements in the design of the U.S. team's bobsled, Warner said. For example, she was able to determine the optimum height for the start handle.

The simulator is connected to a computer that records the speed of the start and the forces necessary to attain a solid start. Analysis of this information not only helps the athlete adjust his or her approach to the start, but also can determine design changes to the bobsled itself, Erdman said.

Before the games began in Salt Lake, the simulator technology was highlighted on NBC Nightly News in a segment on how technology is helping in the training of Olympic athletes.
However, since the bobsled competition took place during the second week of the games, medal results — and thus the contribution of the simulator — were not available at press time.

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