Category: Engineering

The Winter Olympic Games may have finished, but we still have the Winter Paralympic Games to look forward to.

In both games, athletes often rely heavily on the equipment and technology that they need to compete in their event. So, while we have seen some fantastic examples of excellence in athleticism so far this year, we have been thinking about the examples of excellence in engineering that have been going on behind the scenes.

Here are some of what we think are the most innovative pieces of technology that have been harnessed for the Winter Olympics and Paralympics.

Blind Shooting

The Para-Biathlon is an event in the Winter Paralympic Games which sees athletes compete in cross-country skiing and rifle shooting. The categories are divided into standing, sitting and visually impaired.

Those athletes with a visual impairment then need assistance during the event, but particularly during the rifle shooting part of the event. The rifles used in the event are not capable of shooting bullets, but are electronic rifles that use cameras and LED lights to ‘shoot’. The rifle is connected to a pair of headphones which emit a high-pitched sound the closer the athlete gets to aiming the rifle at the centre of the target.

This use of sound enables visually impaired athletes to compete in an event that would otherwise be impossible for them to participate in.

The Curling SmartBroom

Curling may date back as far as the 16^th century, but it has only been an official Winter Olympic sport since the 1998 Winter Olympic where the Swiss men’s team and Canadian women’s team took home the gold medals.

The sport involves shooting a stone down a sheet of ice where a bullseye-like mark, known as the ‘house’ waits at the end. The aim of the game is to get the stone as close to the centre of the house as possible.

Two teammates follow the stone down the ice, using brooms to swipe the ice to manipulate the speed and trajectory of the stone. These brooms started out as regular corn brooms that could be found in most households, but they have developed over time.

However, two engineers and their friend sought to change the curling broom a little more dramatically.

This broom, known as the SmartBroom uses four sensors in the broom head to measure the force and stroke rate, giving a figure known as a sweeping performance index. The idea is that this will help athletes to hone their skills with real data, rather than working on a ‘trial and error’ basis. The broom has proved to be particularly popular with the athletes and have been used in the Winter Olympic Games of this year and 2014.

Prosthetic Limbs

Many Paralympians are amputees, so rely on prosthetic limbs to assist them, not only during their sporting events, but also in their daily lives. However, the prosthetics used in the Winter Paralympic Games are often very different to the ones they may use in everyday life.

One athlete began making prosthetics himself after an accident that resulted in one of his legs being amputated.

Mike Schultz was once an athlete who raced snowmobiles professionally until an accident in 2008. After his amputation, he set to creating a prosthetic that would better suit the needs of athletes looking to compete in winter sports. When testing his new leg out on a snowboard, he discovered a love for the sport and will now be competing for the USA in this year’s Winter Paralympic Games.

Prosthetic limbs require a great deal of engineering to create something that can function as a joint while supporting an individual and giving them a fluid range of motion. The advancement in prosthetics engineering has allowed many people to compete in the Paralympic Games and Winter Paralympic Games, allowing us to see excellence in athleticism through excellence in engineering.

At European Springs, we see the great engineering that goes into these fantastic events. As spring manufacturers, we are able to work on plenty of exciting projects, such as our recent work with the National Theatre, so we are always excited to see how engineering can make so many things possible.

You can find out more about our work by visiting our blog, and if you would like to find out more about us, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

Female engineers have contributed tremendously towards the engineering industry, and many have without a doubt, shaped the world.

However, statistics state less than 10% of the engineering workforce is female, with the gender balance in this field one of the worst in Europe. This situation is far from ideal for a country like the UK, which urgently needs to increase the number of people with engineering skills.

With the Institute of Engineering and Technology appointing their very first female president, Naomi Climer in 2015, there has since been a lot of emphasis put on introducing more women into the world of STEM subjects. She believed that failing to do so will harm the nation in the future.

There are women today that are doing amazing work within the engineering sector and will inspire the next generation of women engineers in the UK and all over the world.

So this Thursday 8^th March, the date that represents International Women’s Day, we’ve decided to take a look at, and celebrate, women in engineering.

Do you know which important inventions were created by women?

Mary Anderson (1866 – 1953) Inventor

Did you know that a woman was behind the invention of the windshield wiper? You do now! Mary Anderson was the genius behind this essential device that you probably take for granted when driving your car.

Whilst living in New York in 1903, Mary witnessed a driver leave his front window open so that he could clear some sleet that had fallen. This gave her the idea for the windshield wiper. She applied for and was granted her patent for it in November that year.

It expired before the windshield wiper really became a big thing, which came about with the boom of the automotive industry.

Martha J. Coston (1826 – 1904) Inventor

Martha was a 21-year-old widow who was struggling to take care of her four children after the death of her husband. She knew she needed a better way to support her family, so set about to find a way to do so. She found a design in a notebook that her husband had done before he died and realised that she could get it to work.

She spent around 10 years redesigning, developing and testing her reworking of the designs, so that they included pyrotechnic components that could make an ongoing and colourful system of flares.

She was granted a patent in 1859, and the US Navy bought it off her for around $20,000 – although she did win the right to manufacture the device. Her system is credited as helping the North win the Civil War.

Emily Roebling (1843-1903) Brooklyn Bridge

Emily Roebling was the woman behind the creation of the Brooklyn Bridge. When her husband was suddenly paralyzed after an accident, Emily became the first woman field engineer and leader of the project. She was the woman in charge of the chief engineer’s duties, supervising the day to day running of the project and was the person in charge of the project management.

She taught herself in all areas of civil and construction engineering, so that she could communicate goals to the workmen and financiers. When the project was finished, the American Society of Civil Engineers wanted to credit her husband as the head engineer.

Emily protested and was rightly given the credit for her work on the bridge.

Hedy Lamarr (1913 – 2000) Inventor

You might know Hedy Lamarr as a Hollywood starlet of the early twentieth century, which is what she is often remembered for. However, as engineering nuts, we know Hedy Lamarr as one of the key figures who helped in the black ops warfare in the Second World War.

Once the war started, Hedy was keen to assist in the war effort, highlighting the fact that jamming of allied radio communications by the Axis as a big problem. As a result, she developed her frequency hopping theory which now serves as a basis for modern communication technology.

Stephanie Louise Kwolek (1923- 2014) DuPont

Before the work of Kwolek, people couldn’t claim to be bulletproof, but once she made the discovery of liquid crystalline polymers, which resulted in the product ‘Kevlar’, they could. Containing fibres that are stronger than steel, Kevlar is used to make bullet-proof vests, radial tires and airplane fuselages, as well as fibre optic cables.

In the last thirty years, Kwolek got the recognition she deserved when she received the National Medal of Technology in 1996 and was named to the Women’s Hall of Fame in 2003.

Marilyn Jorgensen Reece (1926 – 2004) Civil Engineer

One of the most travelled roads in the entirety of the United States was designed by a woman who said that she likes Maths, but ‘didn’t want to be a teacher’. This was at the time when technically gifted women weren’t encouraged to pursue any other career than teaching.

Reece is not only distinguishable as the first female to earn a full license as a civil engineer in 1954 but was also entrusted with the design of the San Diego-Santa Monica freeway interchange in Los Angeles!

Linda Cureton – (1959 -) NASA

Cureton is a top technologist in NASA, where she works with some of the fastest computers in the world and lastest technology machines used to make experiments in outer space. She is a Mathematics and Applied Mathematics graduate and received several awards, such as the one from Washingtonian Magazine, Tech Titans, in 2011.

In 2013, Cureton launched her new company, Muse Technologies. Inc, providing IT-enabled leadership, strategic planning, program management and information technology consulting to private and government sector organisations.

Marissa Mayer – (1975 -) Yahoo

Mayer was the first female engineer to be employed by Google. From 2012 to 2017 she worked as the president and CEO at Yahoo. She’s an expert on search technologies and key products that include the toolbar, among others.

Since she was young she excelled in biology, calculus, physics and chemistry; all of which are disciplines that make engineering possible. She was listed in the Forbes Magazine’s List of the 100 World’s Most Powerful Women.

Lauren States – (1956 -) IBM

States joined IBM just after finishing college in the late 1990′s. Inside this company she had all sorts of roles from executive assistant to technical sales in the software group, but she’s best known for being behind IBM’s cloud computing strategy. She is also the creator of one of IBM’s international leadership development programs.

In 2014, States was inducted into the Women in Technology International Hall of Fame.

Jen FitzPatrick – (1977 -) Google

FitzPatrick is one of Google’s first employees as she joined the company in 1999. Since then she has helped them develop their search services. Her current project is improving the company geo-mobile technology. She leads the Google Map’s team who connects more than 1 billion people all over the world.

Ruchi Sanghvi – (1982 -) Dropbox

Sanghvi was Facebook’s first female engineer before she started her own company, Cove, which was finally sold to Dropbox. She joined Dropbox’s team in 2012 where she became Head of Operations. She won a TechFellow ‘Best Engineering Leadership Award’ in 2011 for her work at Facebook.

Women have been a part of the engineering world for centuries, and in that time they have contributed some truly amazing feats and discoveries, including ones that we still heavily rely on today.

Here at European Springs & Pressing Ltd, our colleagues make their own special contribution to the engineering world, and that’s by being one of the best spring specialists out there!

As compression, flat, torsion and gas spring manufacturers, our products are used around the world in major industrial environments!

For more information, please contact us today on 0208 663 1800 and a member of our team will be happy to help with your enquiries.

Every four years, passionate athletes from around the globe don their tracksuits, pack their snow-suits, and travel to whichever country has been announced as the host for the world famous Winter Olympics.

A competition many athletes spend their entire life in training for, the winter competition of its more popularised summer counterpart is not one to be taken lightly.

This year it is the turn of Pyeongchang, South Korea, to host, and the typically cold games began on Friday 9^th February, welcoming competitors from more than 90 countries from around the world.

With events expected to be attempted by 2,952, attended by more than 700,000, and watched by millions, this year’s action-packed schedule looks set to exhilarate.

The History of the Winter Olympics

The Winter Olympics were first held in Chamonix, France in 1924, bringing us to the 23^rd edition in Pyeongchang this year.

Originally just a one-off competition, by 1925 the International Olympic Committee (IOC) decided to stage the games every four years, months after the already prevalent summer games.

However, it wasn’t until 70 years later that the IOC decided to host the games separately on alternating years from the summer games, which is what happened for Lillehammer, Norway in 1994.

The Winter Olympic host cities were originally selected due to the popularity of the proposed city. For example, the first two Winter Olympics, Chamonix and St. Moritz, are two well-known ski resorts.

The IOC selected these popular areas as they were more than likely able to host an event of this scale, due to the nature of the area being purpose-built for tourists and winter sports already.

It was not until years later in which cities began bidding for the right to host the event.

Nowadays, the IOC accepts bids every two years and the application fee is $150,000. This is meant to deter cities that are not committed to the efforts necessary to host the Olympics.

Popular Sports

In addition to looking completely different to how the games looked 93 years ago, the sports themselves have had an overhaul.

As time moves on, and technological advances are a continual consideration in the world of sports, it can be interesting to take a look back at the engineering marvels which have been experienced throughout the Winter Olympics.

Figure Skating

Often referred to as the most popular Winter Olympic game, which is reflected in ticket sales, competitive Figure Skating showcases the individual’s ice skating skills.

The sport is split between individual men and women’s skating, as well as the mixed event, where couples take to the ice to perform a carefully considered routine.

It is the oldest sport in the Winter Olympics and has changed dramatically as time has developed.

Before it became an official sport, ice skating was originally used as a way to travel between towns as far back as the 13^th century.

In 1850, Edward Bushnell revolutionised the activity when he introduced steel-bladed skates to allow for complex manoeuvers and turns.

Ballet was then incorporated in the 1860’s, and the popular Olympic sport was born.

What is still fascinating to the day is the constant updates the sport attracts.

The first pair of ice skates were made using the bones of animals. In today’s world, tempered steel is coated with a high-quality chrome, allowing for a much smoother and safer experience.

Snowboarding

A more recent sport to be included in the schedule at the Winter Olympics is the snowboard category.

With 11 separate events including half-pipe, snowboard cross and slopestyle, the sport has deemed popular in the 20 years since it was introduced.

The difficult sport hails from a demand for a new winter sport, and pioneers developed a concept which is a cross between surfing and skateboarding.

The first report of a snowboard being created is from as recent as 1965, in which inventor Sherman Poppen attached two ski’s together, creating a monoski. This was then ridden by his family down the surrounding slopes, and the idea was born.

Cut to today and we have some of the finest technological advances available. Taking into considerations such as gravity, momentum, acceleration and inertia, the snowboard that is used in the Winter Olympics today is composed of a laminated fibreglass, which surrounds wood.

Bobsleigh

Bobsleigh is another high-speed race which has seen a dramatic engineering development in its lifetime.

Invented by the Swiss in the late 1860s, Bobsleigh made its official debut at the Winter Olympics in the first ever games.

The original sled was made from wood, however, due to technological advances, they were replaced by steel sleds that were quickly coined as bobsleighs, due to the nature of the bobbing motion the competitors undertake at the beginning of the race.

The bobsleigh went through a further transformation to make them more lightweight, and are now created using a mixture of high-tech fibreglass and steel.

Keeping a conscious eye on the ever-changing world of technology is something that we strive to maintain here at European Springs.

As with the startling developments seen through history in the Winter Olympics, we are also continually evolving to create a better, more efficient service.

Contact us today for all of your spring and pressing needs.