Team play! Integrating sports into the engineering curriculum

The context of sporting activities can be an exciting way to teach engineering principles. We are in the process of developing a series of hands-on modules in order to introduce engineering students to mechanical, aerospace, and chemical engineering principles through application to sports and sports performance. The modules allow for students to explore topics such as aerodynamics, mechanics and transport in the context of sports. The modules will be used in a freshman level course focused on engineering measurements, a new senior undergraduate elective course and integrated into other core courses in mechanical and chemical engineering. The purpose of this paper is to describe the experiments that will be conducted by the students, their relation to science and engineering principles found in sports, various measurements and calculations that the students will perform and how the modules fit within the curriculum.