Football Helmet Acceleration By: Richard Pape And Larkin Heintzman Instructor: Doug Harper

What is Our Project Our project is to build a model for the acceleration of a football helmet during a collision. The Impact will be delivered by a small hammer

What's the Point? Determining the forces being applied to a football helmet during a collision could be useful in the following ways: Helping athletes avoid major head trauma Determining where more padding is required inside the helmet Working towards building a complete model for the accelerations on the helmet during various types of collisions

Methods We Will Use Our main program will have the following capabilities: An “Acquire” feature Used to receive the data from the accelerometers Data will be plotted live The data sampling rate is adjustable And a “Playback” feature Used to replay previously acquired data Has the capability to stop, rewind, and pause the playing data. Speed of replay is adjustable

Methods We Will Use To build the model of acceleration we will implement several things: 7 Accelerometers Communicate via SPI (Serial Peripheral Interface) Capable of tracking the X, Y, and Z axis's. The myRIO data acquisition system Able to run LabVIEW programs without the need for a computer. And a computer to view the results of a test For the purpose of displaying the data from a test in a user friendly format.

What is SPI? SPI is a synchronous serial communication protocol Can be used with multiple peripheral devices Generally has one master device, and one or more servant devices SPI is a 4 wire connection MISO = Master In Servant Out MOSI = Master Out Servant In SS = Servant Select SCK = Serial Clock

Prototype Front Panel Recording

Prototype Front Panel Playback

Progress to Date: Determining the best placement of the accelerometers on the football helmet. Achieving SPI communication with the accelerometers chosen for this project Testing the accelerometers for functionality

Next Steps for Project Attach the necessary accelerometers to the football helmet Finalize user interface Develop standard viewing system for user interface Carry out testing with all accelerometers attached to the helmet, and gather results

The Testing Process The steps of the testing are as follows: Attach accelerometers to the helmet Test acquire function by applying an impact to the helmet Test playback function by reviewing the previously gathered data Review overall performance of the program

Why is Our project unique? Our project is unique in the following ways: We must interface with multiple sensors via SPI We must develop a format to view several graphs in a user friendly way And lastly we must develop a playback system in our program In order to accomplish this, we will develop a way to store the data so that we can play it back when the user requests

Closing Remarks The main challenges that remain are: Building the system that allows us to gather data from the impacts And developing a user friendly graphing method After we accomplish those two main tasks, we will continue with the actual testing of the system.

Questions???