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New Devices Help Track Olympic Winners
Darren writes "Athletes are going faster, higher and longer and as a result the technology that measures their feats at the Olympics needs to keep up. As a result a number of new devices to help track winners, losers at the Games have been developed, including microchips on marathon runners' shoes, ultrasensitive touch pads in the pool, radar guns at the beach volleyball and cameras that take 1000 images per second."
Its always been easy to track the winners at the Olympics.
They're the ones with the medals hanging around their necks.
Norman Cook's Ode to Sl
Putting RFID chips on your shoes is nothing new. All of the local races down here use ChampionChip timing, unless they're really small. Have done for years, too. There's a local company, Run-Far who times most of the races as well - you run over mats at the start, finish, and useful places in the middle. Works pretty well.
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
but is there a device to track Olympic Weiners? I'm in Athens and I'm starving.
> ultrasensitive touch pads in the pool
I used to know a girl who had a couple of those.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
No Fair! They will be changing the outcome when they measure the outcome.
I was at the pub watching the men's sabre competition and we noticed they were wearing helmets the light up in different colors, also wear clothing that detects contact and prevents the usual bloodletting a strike would make. Pretty interesting stuff.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Now we just need a way to stop the judges from doing something stupid in gymnastics and we'll be set.
Something tells me that the technology used will inevitably be faster than the athletes it's used to track. Athletes are, after all, not going twice as high, twice as long or twice as fast, every two years.
...that's about how many are taken of Misty May's and Kerri Walsh's butts as they play a game.
I can only assume that most of the finishes will be recorded digitally, along with all of the information collected about speed and time and all of that.
So where will all of the information go when the games are over? Is there going to be a huge online stockpile where we can all go and watch the ultra slow motion finishes, and look up who had the fastest volleyball spike? I know I could spend hours just watching the slow motion cameras they use to record the divers and sprinters.
Anyone else interested? Can you imagine how much data they must be generating with all of these cameras and sensors?
microchips on marathon runners' shoes, ultrasensitive touch pads in the pool, radar guns at the beach volleyball and cameras that take 1000 images per second."
I'd rather have cameras take 1000 images per second of the [female] beach volleybal players and use my ultrasensitive touch pads on my own radar gun.
Apparently the athletes are improved, too. In track events, a start time within 0.1 seconds of the gun going off is considered a false start. Apparently 0.1 seconds is the fastest reaction time that humans are capable of. Some athletes, though, are now able to react in under 0.1 seconds, and as a result, they are being charged with false starts.
women beach volleyball and cameras that take 1000 images per second, ey? hmm, excellent!
Imagine how far we've come in 72 years - from an average of 25 stopwatches to high speed cameras and microchips in shoes. It makes one really wonder how much more accurate such devices would have to be in the future when men (and women) get faster and races have closer finishes. Maybe we will end up relying more on quantum physics. Then the uncertainity principle kicks in and since "the position and momentum of a particle cannot be simultaneously measured with arbitrarily high precision" - you would either be able to say who won or how fast the winner ran! :)
There is hope yet!?
-- Off to build a bridge between the twin peaks of Mt. Kilimanjaro.
I see michael's modding tonight.
Someone mod this down and read the article...it says right in the article that they are not triggered by the water, only the fingers.
You can't hide behind any cloak of so-called anonymity -- I have measured your comment, and found that it could only come from Heisenberg ... but wait, I measured it, so now I'm Uncertain ...
a combination of well calibrated sensitivity and wet-road-tire-like grooves prevents the water from activating them.
it's just they're anticipating the gun, sometimes they get it right and most of the time they get it wrong: given the new rule that any false starter (after the first start) will be DQ'd I'm sure you won't see 0.1sec reaction times the second time around: to the naked eye the reaction times of the 2nd start they did the other day in the 100m semi-final seemed slower than the 1st for example.
It'd also be interesting to know how far from the athletes the gun is located and if sound travel speed can have an impact on things (how is the electronic system synchronized to the gun? via sound? some other way?)
-- the cake is a lie
Damn.. that's pretty bad.. it even uses the words I used...
I wonder how I missed that!
That must be a typical media oversimplification, right? If a race comes down to a scary, rubbing-elbows-with-the-guy-beside-me sprint, I sure don't want the 'win' to be decided by where in its rotation my wheel is when we cross the line together...
from the article: Matsport relied on some rather amazing high-tech timing and scoring technologies this year, including a FinishLynx® high-speed digital finish line and timing camera system, produced by Lynx System Developers, Inc., of Haverhill, Massachusetts, and an AMB Activ transponder timing system, produced by AMB-it, Heemstede, Netherlands
There is also a really nifty diagram about halfway through the article, showing how the AMB Activ Transponder timing system works.
Not directly Olympics-related, but since we were on the topic of new technology used to measure athletes...
The woman's locker room Web Cams for the Greek games are pretty good. Bet you didn't know those Russian women weightlifters wear jockstraps.
I think this is another example of where general technology gets a huge boost because of the demand of an insanely rich non-human-essential industry.
There is a lot of money in the Olympics, mostly from advertisers on NBC. These new devices are developed more so to improve the TV watcher's experience; there wasn't a need for smart devices in the first Olympics, there is no need now.
Another example, medical imaging: if it weren't for the millions of you out there who are willing to shell out tons of money for games, better digital radiology technology would have never developed.
Personally, I think its great that technology can be developed and improved and debugged at the expense of entertainment industries and then be taken to other fields. No doubt the Olympics have improved the field of embedded computing as a whole.
can't sleep. clowns will eat me.
Unless of course they have a chip in both shoes which would totally invalidate my problems with it. Are you suggesting I didn't read the article?
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
Is a handheld drug-tester, that can develop results on the spot and uses a tiny blood sample. Using it directly before the start of every competition will be the only way to determine the real winners... not the high-speed cameras.
(I realize that kind of technology is far away, but at this rate, we've got no choice but to continue to invest more and more money to catch these "athletes")
It becomes more and more ridiculous even to measure the outcomes of the short races. I watched a swim meet that was decided by 0.01s! Ultra-sensitive touch pads can detect this difference, sure. But who the hell cares? Is the athlete who was 0.01s faster in a 60s race really a better athlete? A million factors, none of them related to his athleticism or dedication or training or the degree to which he overcame personal hardship would have decided this race. Especially in swimming. Water turbulance caused by the swimmer in the next lane must have a tremendous effect; putting you next to a different swimmer could therefore change the outcome. Water temperature differences could have an effect, the wind overhead could have an effect. I see no point in giving the gold medal and all the glory to someone and denying it to another based on a 0.1s difference.
Therefore we should make all these races longer. If you double the length of the race, it stands to reason that the difference between the winner and loser will be twice as large; then maybe you can say with some confidence that the race was decided by athleticism and not pure luck. Sure it's a different sport, but at least you'd be measuring something meaningful.
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
What's the matter Timothy, can't get enough of all those guys in tights without technical assistance?
Even 50 years ago, they were using exactly the same technology to figure out this stuff that they're using today: photo finishes. The fact that today the pixs are digital and available instantly and in days of yore you had to wait for them to get developed is merely an optimization.
link?
but I consider wrong decisions to be part of the game.
They developed something like this for soccer matches some years ago (all links I can think of lead to German sites - rather boring for the majority ). However, there have been some controversial decisions in this sport (like England vs. Germany 1966), which people are still discussing nowadays. I believe that sensors would make sport more boring in the long run.
I don't read replies by ACs.
once upon a time, events were measured down to the thousandth. in one race, 400 meter IM about 30 years ago i believe, the time separating the winner to the runner up was 0.003 seconds - about 3 millimeters. after that, it was argued that the variation in the flatness of the touch pad/pool wall would cause differences so small - hence swimming governing body decided to use the time only down to the hundredth, and consider the race tied if same to the hundredth.
i once tied another swimmer in a 1000 yard race. i thought i had beaten him because my name came up first on the scoreboard, but it turns out we had tied. i checked the computer printout and it turns out i had beaten him by 0.005 s - so my name did come up first for a reason.
Heisenberg's ultimate theory!
As a result a number of new devices to help track winners, losers at the Games have been developed
Anyone else have to read that twice?
in an extreme sprint like you've mentioned, photo finish is used. in fact, in one tour de france stage, i believe, there was a case that the sprint was so fierce that the rider whose front wheel crossed the line first (the "winner) was not the same as the rider whose sensor on the fork first crossed the line.
"....cameras that take 1000 images per second."
Yet they are looking at giving out All-Around Male Gymnastics double gold because Judged accidentally knocked a tenth of a point from the starting score of a gymnast.
The coolest tech out there is definitely finishlynx. It takes pictures of who crosses the finish line only a pixel or two wide and stitches them together so you know exactly who crossed the line in what order and what their times were since the times are exactly proportional with the pics. In this pic of me in the men's lightweight single dash I am finishing 3rd (Alex Krupp, lane 1). The reason I appear so bloated compared to everyone else is I put on a huge fucking sprint at the finish and even though I was a full boat length of open water down on 5th place with 100 meters left I managed to finish 3rd. Not bad for not eating shit or drinking much in 2 days to make weight. Anyway because I was going so much faster than everyone else at the finish I appear in the least number of pixel wide images, thus making me appear bloated and compressed compared to all the other boats. The reason all the oars are swirly is because they change positions from when the first part of the oar crosses the line to when the whole boat is passed, thus creating a cool real time motion blur.
...he truly understands the olympic spirit! :)
I'll admit that the Olympics have some pretty cool devices to measure speed and performance (as well as to detect who is cheating).
I also have to wonder about why these devices are developed. I know that this is a sort of "If they can put a man on the moon why can't they..." type of arguement (but) why are people so willing to develop things for entertainment - and sports is entertainment (even the olympics) when there never seems to be enough money for developing technology that will help the poor or treat rare diseases?
I know that people are willing to pay for the products and that is why (it is the profit motive) but when you think about it, isn't that really kind of sick? That we as people care more about our entertainment than we think about other people?
Maybe it is just that I am extra grumpy tonight. I enjoy entertainment too. But when you think about it, in all seriousness, we do kinda go out of our way for things like the olympics when there are so many other serious things in this world that need money, technology, and attention.
that article is so behind it's not funny.. here's the e-mail I sent the columnist..
t m
so 1996 was not the first time for color, but maybe the first time IN THE OLYMPICS for color. I worked for Lynx from 1997-1999 as a sales rep. I've had my camera since '97 and it has always been able to do 2000 lines/sec so your 2004 timeline is way off. However, in 2004, Lynx has just released their professional camera capable of taking up to 10000 lines/sec for things such as auto racing. Surf thier site a bit and you'll get a better grip on it.
your article on Digital photofinish timing info is slighlty incorrect. Most FAT (fully automatic timing) systems used at anything above a college meet will do 2000 lines/sec like the camera I own. Thats not to say that they aren't using only 1000 of them, just not likely. Your timeline is off as well. 1992, true as listed In 1995, Lynx System developers had color cameras as you can see from thier newsletters: http://www.finishlynx.com/lynx/newsletters/body.h
and a short synopsis to curb your curiosity: A transducer (sensitive microphone) triggers the timer, either by wire or radio-encoded wireless signal. The timer is inside the camera. The camera has an image sensor just like your digial camera except it's only 1 pixel wide. You align it on the leading edge of the finish line, not just the leading 8mm of it or whatever it said. It scans the line at whatever rate I choose. Usually, I don't go below 1000/sec. The 100m will get a 2000/sec setting for elite runners. As for blocks, Reaction times are measured differently depending on who makes the system. Lynx's system is different than Seiko's or Omega's. But the speakers on the blocks are there to minimize the advantage lane 1 has in hearing the gun before lane 9 does.
It would be good to see these in the shoes of the "50km walk" participants, to detect cheating. TV cameras repeatedly show snapshots of people with both feet in the air (the regulations of the sport are that you must have 1 in contact with the ground at all times). I predict that if this technology came through, the race times would increase by 15%
Practical pistol shooting (ie shooting targets in a "combat situation" with handguns) is considered by some to be a martial art. Bet those 9mm bullets go faster than any sabre :-).
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Some cameras can do a few million fps. These are mainly used in applications like analysis of stresses during explostions etc. I once used one of these cameras to watch det cord burning at 7000 metres per second. We used the slowest setting on the camera (approx 250kfps).
Engineering is the art of compromise.
I find that the closeness of the swimming competitions--in that only machines can judge who is the second place person and the third place person, make the competition seem a bit on the irrelevant side. Am I the only person who wonders what the hell the difference is between a Gold and a Silver if there were only 1/100 difference in the competitor's performances?
At my high school swim meets we use flat pads on the wall. They never get triggered by waves, so they must be a lot less sensitive.
I'm a firm believer in the philosophy of a ruling class. Especially since I rule. -Randal, Clerks
including microchips on marathon runners' shoes, ultrasensitive touch pads in the pool, radar guns at the beach volleyball and cameras that take 1000 images per second
It'd be nice if we could throw a little technology at improving the judging in gymnastics. The athletes deserve a lot more fairness than they got this year.
Perhaps we should start by locating a guillotine on the podium, where it might serve as a constant reminder to the judges.
You're confusing cadence (the rpm of the cranks) with the revolutions per minute of the wheel. The figure you cite are in the ballpark for cadence, yes, but not for the wheels' rotation. Assume a wheel is 70 cm tall ("700c"), which gives a circumference of about 2.2 m. Let's be cautious and assume a finish speed of 60 km/h (1000 m/min for ease of computation). Therefore our hypothetical wheel would be rotating at about 450 rpm.
I just did the Helsinki marathon on Saturday and rented an arm-mounted GPS tracking device from FRWD. I should get the data back in a few days. It records location and heart rate and then can replay the race in a virtual simulation. Pretty cool! You can buy them as well of course.
Perhaps if I carried a package of condoms in my khaki pants to work...
But after carrying this package for a year, security will know that your other package isn't getting any use.
paintball
its not surface waves that are at issue here, its the pressure wave of slightly compressed water riding a few mm in front of your hand/finger (picture a shock wave)
It's not working very well then, there seem to be more wrong/misstimed results than ever. I was watching Matthew pincent get his gold in the boat racing and first and second where almost neck and neck crossing the line yet the computer said that they where 5 seconds apart. There have been alot of results like that and one where someone nearly missed out on a bronze because the computer had put them in 4th not 3rd fortunatley the judges spotted the error.
Saying Apple is better than MS is like saying Botulism is better than rabies.
All the privacy nuts who go on and on about this stuff drive me insane. It is like they have neve rshopped anywhere in the past 10 years.
Whenever you buy something the cashier basically *has* to swipe it over ahigh frequency magnetic / EM emitter device to nuke the anti-shoplifiting chips they have. If they forget to do this the instant you walk out the door alarms blare etc.
Even *if* the manufacturer had RFID chips in their items seperate from the stores anti-theft tags, said chips would also be permenantly nuked by the device.
Aside fromt hat fact, you even said yourself they need to be within 2 or 3 *meters* to read the damn thing. How usefull is that to track *anyone*?
Throw your tinfoil hat in the trash, it doesn't belong here.
Let's assume your hypotehtical calculations are correct. They seem decent. However, that is only 7.5 revolutions per second. So 1/7.5 is only 0.1333(etc) seconds.
As people have poionted out, when you're talking sub-tenth-of-a-second splits, is this actually an accurate enough measure? Or would you need the transponder fixed on a known location on the bike so you don't have this possibility of being affected by where on the wheel the transponder is at the time.
Someone can feel free to correct my math, but it seems the orbit of the transponder on the wheel could still actually be a factor here.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
(To be fair, it's unusual. By insurance rates, fencing is actually one of the safest sports from what I've heard.)
I've heard the same of most unarmed martial arts too, usually with an addendum that most injuries in martial arts occur from people returning to practice after a long absence and hurting joints and muscles because in their mind, they know exactly how high/fast/hard they can strike, but their bodies aren't in shape to perform thus. I kjnow I've experienced that before... accelerating your arm for the punch isn't so hard. Stopping it before your shoulder goes pop can be more difficult.
... race really a better athlete?
Well, yes, the stopwatch says so.
How do you propose to measure personal hardship? Now that is a novel idea.
And I am sure you have a model that accurately predicts every single imponderable to give the correct result. Don't forget gravitational attractions, solar wind and background radiation.
And sure, your great idea of making a 100m race now a 200m race has all the 200m runners full of joy. OK so lets make the 200m a 400m race. What is your next great idea. Don't tell us! TO make the 400m race an 800m race.
Look, the birht of my strawman above is all your fault, you asked for it and the strawman got it.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
So you know how fast the serve was, so what? It doesn't materially improve the way the game is judged, it's just candy for people to say "ooh, that serve was 1 km/h faster than the last one!"
Now, if they had computer systems to register whether a ball lands in or out, or whether a player's hand touches the net, that would be something useful.