Check out this trailer featuring the new-look Dartmouth Mobile Virtual Player tackling dummy in action both at the American Football Coaches Association convention last month in San Antonio as well as from last fall, before its makeover ;-)
Also new to YouTube are a nine-second clip of the MVP going through an "L-Drill," (LINK) and the MVP getting crushed running a route in a three-second clip (LINK).
Speaking of the MVP . . .
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From a story in Dartmouth Engineer Magazine about the robotic tackling dummy born in Thayer School of Engineering:
Calling the plays on the field today is Dartmouth head football coach Eugene “Buddy” Teevens ’79, who has been a crusader for reducing injuries at practice—going so far as to ban full-contact practices back in 2010. Three years ago he was talking with his classmate John Currier ’79 Th’81, a Thayer research engineer, about mechanical ways the team might simulate tackling. “We decided the most effective way would be to take it to the Thayer School and position it as a capstone project,” says Currier, who reached out to Elliot Kastner ’13 Th’14 ’15, an engineering student and Dartmouth football player. He was enthusiastic about taking it on. “For the majority of my life, football and engineering have been living in separate worlds,” says Kastner, clutching the MVP’s remote control on the sidelines. “Now I got to see them come together.”
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Heat wave here in the Upper Valley. It was a more balmy 11.5 below zero overnight on Moose Mountain. Astonishingly (given the past few days) the mercury (or silicon?) could reach the upper 40s on Tuesday!