Using Player Feedback to Improve Surfaces

Start Date

09/19/2018

End Date

09/21/2018

Description

It's all about the player. Today's sports surfaces for football, soccer, and rugby have become sophisticated systems where an underlayment/turf and infill system interact to provide the safest surfaces that also meet required technical performances. To continue developing artificial sports surfaces, we must embrace innovative and new technologies to increase our understanding of what goes on when a player interacts with a surface and elements of the surrounding venue including distances to bleachers and fans. Whether this is by simulating some of the interactions a player has with surfaces, investigating how they feel when they interact with a surface or measuring precisely forces and speeds. Biofeedback data can be used to influence manufacturers to produce player-friendly surfaces or change maintenance practices to make sure fields retain these favorable properties. The presentation touches on some examples of the work Sports Labs is doing to make the field of play more tuned-in to the players.

Location

Boulder, CO

Distance Learning

Course Equivalency

Subjects

Campus Planning & Design
Parks & Recreation

Health, Safety and Welfare

Yes

Hours

1.0

Learning Outcomes

• Presenting results for the only player perception study to be conducted on a member associations soccer surfaces (42 stadiums) over a whole season
• Demonstrating that players are an important part of the ‘testing protocol’ when it comes to evaluating the safety and performance of surfaces;
• Illustrating how new technology and new approaches will help to characterize the sports technical performance of surfaces including drainage and environmental cooling to reduce heat island effects.
• Determining what forces players sustain when playing on sports surfaces
• How architects select sports surfaces based on performance by using the knowledge base provided in the talk

Instructors

Eric O'Donnell, Mphil, MICE - Managing Director of SportsLabs and Hillary Dixon - Research and Development Engineer at SportsLabs

Course Codes

LACESBrock01

Provider

Brock International

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