Football is a much loved sport in the United States. Unfortunately, it is also hard on the players and puts them at very high risk of concussion. To combat this an inventor in Santa Barbara brought a new design to Cal Poly to be tested. The design was tested in small scale first in order to make some preliminary conclusions about the design. In order to fully test the helmet design; however, full scale testing was required. In order to carry out this testing a drop tower was built based on National Operating Committee on Standards for Athletic Equipment, NOCSAE, specification. The drop tower designed for Cal Poly is a lower cost and highly portable version of the standard NOCSAE design. Using this drop tower and a 3D printed prototype the new design was tested in full scale. With the results of the full scale testing regime and computer modeling done, it was concluded that the new design did not reduce a player’s risk for concussion. The new design increased the SI value for the helmet by a factor of 2.5. The drop tower itself is able to deliver consistent test results. With a 14% variation in impact events the tests are fairly consistent when taking into account all the variations present and the parts of a football helmet.
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