Engineering Marvel of the Winter Olympics: A Broom (nytimes.com)

Andrew Flemming and Geoff Fowler, both 29, along with their friend and business partner, Will Hamilton, 37, were pouring their creative energies into a high-tech training device the likes of which the sporting world had never seen. They were building a better broom. From a report: Not just any broom, but one that they thought could be essential to the sport of curling, which relies on the best broom handling out there as teams strategically cajole a polished granite rock across a sheet of ice. They wound up calling it the SmartBroom, and in a sport that can come across as vaguely primordial, their piece of 21st-century gadgetry could play a role in determining who wins gold at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea.

Each SmartBroom has four sensors in the broom head that relay data to a small display unit. Hamilton took one for a spin down the ice, and the data was instantaneous -- line graphs along with a slew of numbers that showed his force in pounds and his stroke rate in hertz. Hamilton also pointed to a figure that he described as his "sweeping performance index," or S.P.I., a metric that combines power and speed in one easy-to-digest figure. Patrick Janssen, a world-class curler from Canada, has consistently registered an S.P.I. in the 2,800 range. The numbers by themselves might not mean much, Flemming said, but subtle changes in technique can lead to big differences in the quality of each stroke. And now curlers have that information at their disposal. They can experiment to see which stroke works best for them.

Comments

It's hard to see Curling as a sport

[magzteel]

Watching them sweeping furiously is pretty funny though.

I want to see competitive vacuum cleaning in the summer games.

Re:I think in golf stuff like that is banned

[Hadlock]

I bought a bicycle computer and one of the features is to track pedal cadence (pedal rpm). I went from a cadence of 45-60 and after getting the computer changed to a cadence of 85-95 and it completely changed how I bicycled. Completely different way to ride a bike, engages muscles differently etc.
 
This is basically the same as a pedal cadence meter on a bike. Some (very expensive) cycle computers will also calculate torque applied to left and right pedals allowing you to figure out if you favor one leg.
 
Once you watch the computer for a few weeks you can judge in your head what your cadence is within ~7 rpm for me at least. I haven't used the torque meters (they're ~$800-3000 but the price is coming down) but I would imagine I could improve my torque to closer to 50:50 L:R. Right now I bet it's closer to like 35:65 as I favor the right leg.
 
I'm sure after a few seasons with a "trainer broom" you'll be able to calculate this within X percent of ideal. Once they figure out the ideal situation given ice temp, broom temp and broom surface, etc.

Sport used to be just for fun

[Big Bipper]

Sport used to be something you played just for fun. Now only those competitors whose sponsors have the deepest pockets stand a chance. Sport should not require kids practicing 12 hours a day from age 6 to be competitive, and then in some sports be over the hill by their early 20s. Kids should be allowed to play sports for fun, not to become some short term corporate or national asset. Parents who permit or force their kids into such training regimens should be strung up for abuse. The Olympics haven't been about sport for a hundred years and this is just a another sign of that.

I once caught a match on TV,

[jenningsthecat]

and the team that was losing broke out the old-time straw brooms. Not because they're better in any way, but because they tend to leave debris on the ice that might mess up subsequent shots, aka 'the other team'. It was a bit controversial and the sportscasters discussed the strategy, which is how I knew what was going on. I'm guessing those old brooms have now been outlawed.