Concussions are a major talking point at the moment, especially when it comes to the violent sport of American football.
A movie called Concussion is coming out soon starring Will Smith where he takes on the NFL and challenges them to tell the truth when it comes to long-term effects of concussions on the brain.
Obviously, it would take way too long to delve into all sides of the argument, so for now we’ll focus on the Dartmouth football team, which is beginning to use high-tech robot football dummies in practice.
These robots make for perfect drill dummies to practice tackling techniques and a myriad of other things while minimizing the number of hits a human takes.
Developed by Dartmouth College engineering students, the MVP—or Mobile Virtual Player—is controlled by an operator off-field using a wireless remote.
The robot football dummies can move around the field and are made of foam to ensure the tackler doesn’t risk injury upon impact.
I can definitely see more teams implementing robot dummies for drills in the future as a way to incorporate more technology into football while also increasing safety for the players.
