There’s no Olympic medal for sports engineering. But breakthrough technology is playing a star role at the London games – if you know where to look. The National Science Foundation has teamed up with NBC’s Olympics and education division to create a guide to the split-second timekeepers, wave-reducing pools, high-performance gear, and other feats of technology that let athletes compete at their peak.

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Tags: 2012 Summer Olympics, athletes, bicycling, Design, helmet, London, Olympics, pool, Sports, sports engineering, stadium, swimming, team, Technology

What do Rihanna, Katy Perry, and Lady Gaga have in common with engineering? All belt out chart-topping singles in a costume tailor-made for a techno beat and larger-than-life image: an LED dress. Wearable technology reaches beyond fashion to lightweight military armor and applications in sports, cybersecurity, and medicine. Check out these fun examples!

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Tags: cast, concept cast, Cornell, CuteCircuit, dye, equestrian, fabric, Fashion, fractures, Hidez, high-performance apparel, high-performance fabric, Juan Hinestroza, LED, materials engineering, MIAmobi, nanoscale material, Nanotechnology, Nike, Olympics, Pedro Nakazato Andrade, racehorse, RFID, sensors, Sports, Tags: athletics, textile manufacturing, Textiles

In science, speed is just distance divided by time. But in sports, where fractions of a second can determine champions, speed is everything. That’s why many athletes look to engineering for a high-tech edge that can maximize velocity and performance.

Take Nike’s new track and field uniforms — released just in time for the summer Olympics.

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Tags: Fashion, Materials, Olympics, Sports

Last year we reported on the sustainability efforts of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, which made the games the greenest yet. Vancouver was outfitted with solar panels, green roofs, and mechanisms to collect and recycle rainwater. Award medals were made from re-purposed electronic waste.

Now, Rio de Janeiro is aiming to create the first games with a zero-carbon footprint when it hosts the Summer Olympics in 2016.

To help the city achieve this goal, Swiss-based RAFAA Architecture and Design has proposed a Solar City Tower, which features a visually stunning energy-generating waterfall.

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Tags: Architectural, Energy, Environmental, Green Technology, Ocean, Olympics, renewable energy, Sports

Every two years we get to marvel at the speed, skill and artistry of the world’s top athletes and watch increasingly lavish opening and closing ceremonies, yet few of us ponder the work that goes on behind the scenes at the Olympic Games. In a recent post on her engineering education blog, Celeste Baine estimates that there were about 4,000 engineers involved in the 2008 Beijing Olympics, doing things like planning the pyrotechnics of the torch lighting and creating the fastest and most efficient running shoe.

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Tags: Olympics, Sports