When I was in third grade, my teacher asked our class to come up with an invention that no one had ever seen before. Naturally, possessing a childlike imagination not yet sullied by the reality of the adult world, I drew a picture of rocket-powered rollerblades, an idea that I shamelessly stole from an episode of Jimmy Neutron. Even I, a nine-year-old larcenist of intellectual property, thought that rocket-powered rollerblades—while an undeniably awesome invention—was a far-fetched and unachievable concept—stuff of cartoon folly. Impossible.
However, it’s 2016 now and the times they’ve been a-changin’. There’s a hoverboard in every home in America, infants learn to text before learning to talk, and the Kardashians have hijacked the title of America’s First Family, residing in Calabasas and anchoring all of their professional achievements in the initial success of their eldest daughter’s sex tape (the American Dream is alive and well).
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But with this tectonic cultural shift has come major advancements in the world of science as well. Superman still doesn’t exist as far as we know, but engineers in the field of prosthetic science have managed to leap massive obstacles in single bounds, developing prosthetic limbs and assistive devices leagues superior to what we’ve known in the past. In fact, these incredible advancements have lead to the latest worldwide sporting competition, the 2016 Cybathlon, “a championship for pilots with disabilities who are using advanced assistive devices including robotic technologies.”
Hosted by the Swiss National Center of Research in Robotics (NCCR Robotics), the competition is intended to exhibit not only the abilities of the parathletes, but also to showcase the ultramodern technology being utilized throughout the contest. Much like how NASCAR is just as much about the car as it is about the driver, success at the Cybathlon is just as much a feat of engineering as it is a feat of athleticism.
“The competitions are comprised of different disciplines that will test the ability of pilots to navigate a series of everyday tasks while using a powered knee prosthesis, wearable arm prosthesis, powered exoskeleton, powered wheelchair, electrically stimulated muscles and novel brain-computer interfaces.” The Cybathlon features races, obstacle course style competitions, and even a brain-powered computer game known as a brain-computer interface (BCI), in which the participants, or pilots, have their heads equipped with sensors that interpret brain patterns, allowing characters on the screen to be controlled entirely by brain activity. The races and courses put this groundbreaking prosthetic technology on display in what can only be described as Jetson-esque futurism.
The competition is still in its nascent stages, but the technology already gives an incredible glimpse as to what could be possible in the future. One can’t help but imagine the possibilities that advancements in prosthetic and wearable technology could mean for the future of professional sports.
We hear it all the time in sports. In-helmet headsets, Tommy John surgery, titanium golf clubs, instant replay and more are all advancements that have drastically impacted the landscape of their respective sports forever. We even see it today with old-timers referencing what the progress in NFL glove technology has done to obliterate the limitations of what wide receivers are capable of on the field. Hall of Fame head coach and broadcaster, John Madden, commented saying, “”I saw [those gloves] when I was at a meeting in Indy. They passed them around and somebody made the comment that, ‘Pretty soon, these gloves are going to be able to catch a ball without a hand in them.'”
The Cybathlon makes you wonder at one point these prosthetics and assistive devices might make their way into the professional sports world. Will we ever see our Lebrons and Steph Currys in footwear to help them run faster or jump higher? Will Cam Newton ever don a helmet in the film room rather than on the field and use BCI to prepare for in-game scenarios? These are the questions that drive the world of sports science and the reasons we love sports tech. You never know what’s next or how it will impact the sports you love. Maybe my rocket-powered rollerblades will make an appearance in the next Olympics. Only time will tell.