The Science of the Winter Olympics
Here at Untamed Science, we are big fans of including sports in our science videos. We’ve done this in the past with kayaking, skydiving, and cycling, to name a few. With the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics rolling around, we thought we’d look at some really fun Olympic science. To do that, we’ve teamed up with Brain Craft and The Curious Engineer to create the ultimate Olympic Science Playlist. Here is the first one, an introduction from me:
And just in case your playlist is not working, here are the others. Mine is about the science of altitude training:
BrainCraft asked how brain training improves athletic performance. In typical BrainCraft fashion, Vanessa went about using paper cutouts to show a really cool research project. Here she looked at the science of visualization. In my past life as a competitive swimmer, I remember doing this on cool-down days with the team at the pool. I always wondered if there was science behind it; apparently there is!
The Curious Engineer created a video on the basics of ski jumping (narrated by me). In fact, we worked with ski jump aficionado Max Ambesi, a newscaster in Italy. It was a real pleasure to have been introduced to him by one of our teacher-friends Fabio Lori. I think this one turned out great.
I wrapped it all up with a look at how our bodies can fly in the wind! (And don’t think I wasn’t trying to find an excuse to get into the wind tunnel one more time.) I need to say a special thanks to Derek Perkowski for letting me use some of his footage. He’s an amazing guy. Thanks, Derek.
Hope you enjoyed these Olympic science videos!