From the moment he reached New York soil to begin his Study Abroad year at SUNY Brockport, BBS student and member of our athletics team Craig Duffy took an instant interest in a nonprofit organization Brockport Original Builds constructing makerspace equipment like laser cutters, 3D printers, an electronics station, and computers with software for 3D modeling and coding.
A keen athlete Craig volunteered to propose his idea to help optimse runner times from the starting block and therefore gain advantage.
“The faster you get, the more miniscule the things you have to fix,” Duffy said. “The blocks will never change. I can use this concept to tell me if I’m starting as efficiently as I can.”
The idea – create a starting block hooked up with a resistor device that will send data to an app that shows the speed and force with which a runner pushes off the block.
“Olympic blocks that have all that stuff do exist, but they’re extremely expensive,” LeSuer explained. “So, we’re working to make this technology more accessible.”
It is estimated that these new starting blocks could be commercialised at a much more affordale price than the current market offerings. Craig envisages to have a prototype ready to by next year and then bring them to market.