Senior Design Group 3 Football Helmet Design Douglas Browne Jeffrey Markle Tyler Severance 12/2/2010 What we have done: Since the previous update, our group has managed one crucial step of progress. We traveled to Knoxville to meet with Dr. Halstead, one of the nation’s leading experts in helmet design. Although he has minimal education, he is brilliant in the field and was able to pick apart our theories in a matter of minutes. For example, he was able to use video evidence to prove that actual contact with a helmet was not always the direct cause of concussions and hemorrhages; instead, it is only the high velocities and their associated acceleration/deceleration. Although the tour of his lab was great and actually testing helmets using the free drop method were fun and insightful, the most practical was definitely the mathematical discussion. Current Status: Originally, our group hoped to alter the cushion length and other properties to help reduce angular acceleration while keeping the translational acceleration at a manageable level. However, by proving that limited space and limited range of elasticity, the cushion could only affect a small time frame of collision which really wouldn’t change our results at all. Thus, he recommended that we go a different route and try to incorporate shoulder pads into the design to give us more potential for solutions. What we plan to do: Armed with new ideas (and a genius to guide us), we are hoping to redesign the helmetshoulder pad complex to create some form of safety belt design. In this way, we can still allow free movement of the head while also creating a controlled resistance to the potential hits that could cause high angular acceleration. Specifically, our group has three meetings planned over the next week (twice on our own and once with our advisor) to begin trying new ideas.