Jump, cycle, bounce, dance, compete and play your way through the Sports Lab. Immersive environments provide different lenses through which visitors experience the science beyond sports and other recreational activities as well as the evolving technologies that improve performance and safety. Discover which activities you are best at and compare your performance with that of others.

Biomechanics

Visitors build their own profiles and are videotaped performing  selected activities. 

They receive tips from an “electronic coach” for a second attempt at the activity, and then review the footage of the first and second attempts to analyze their performances.

Helmet Crash Test

Visitors design and create helmets for a crash-test dummy to wear during a simulated head collision. When a pendulum strikes the helmet at a speed the visitor selects, sensors record both the impact to the helmet itself and the portion transmitted to the head inside.

This information is displayed on the LCD screen in numerical form and the dummy responds with a corresponding exclamation (“Ouch!”, “Yeah!”, “Zzzzz”) determined by the helmet's effectiveness.

Virtual Reality Build a Bike

Visitors select a bike rider for whom they will create a new bike as well as the materials and parts and carefully re-work selections until the perfect model is ready.  An animation of the chosen bike rider test-rides the new model. Will it meet the biker’s requirements? Will it even survive the test?

In this immersive environment visitors can investigate and get their hands on a wide variety of real bike parts. Encouraged to lift things, feel things and operate mechanisms visitors compare different versions of the same parts and components. Inspired by their explorations, visitors look closely at examples of the different materials that in many cases make all the difference.

Different Strengths

Several pairs of spring-loaded handles protrude from a wall at different heights. Each pair of handles is housed in a slot-like opening which allows them to move in and out or up and down. At the center of each pair is a gauge with a dial that displays the amount force being exerted. The wall also displays images of athletes with strength developed in different portions of their bodies.

Visitors squeeze together and pry apart the handles using different muscle groups, discovering which are their strongest. Texts alongside the images of athletes ask visitors to spot where different athletes need strength and consider how their own strengths relate to various activities.