The Hidden Costs of The Olympics

  Back in 2012, a group in the United Kingdom looked at the hidden costs of the Olympics.  What constitutes a hidden cost?

Some of the questions include concepts like does the host nation have an advantage when it comes to winning medals?

Are certain records be more likely to broken in certain locations or how does the geometry of the Valedome contribute to speed.

Well the Sports Maths site from 2012, has some great exercises to help students from kindergarten up to high school seniors to  learn more about the hidden costs of the Olympics.  For older students, they figure out how to design a stadium so that no matter where they sit, they can see any event.

Several activities has them analyzing to answer a variety of questions from weight and the shot put, balance and sports, etc.  Some activities offer students a chance to perform mathematical modeling in real situations.  Admitted these activities look more at the summer Olympics but it still provides some wonderful real life activities for analyzes.

Another activity created by Simon Frazier University. has a presentation that looks at the mathematics of running including track geometry and dynamic models for running while looking at the bias in medal giving.  I like the detail in it.  It addresses the question of a loud gun versus a quiet starting pistol, staggered starts, weighted Olympic counts.  This is very detailed math wise.

Math up the Olympics suggests students convert metric to standard English measurements so students know how much 10 meter high dives, or a 4 by 400 race.  Discuss the differences between first and second places.  I was watching some races the other night where they regularly posted  a positive or negative time to give viewers the chance to see how close they were to the winning score.

Although this is from the 2014 Olympics, it can be adjusted for the 2018 Olympics because much of the basic information is the same.  There is a lovely article that looks at the speed of snowboarder and slope style, etc.  Its called defying gravity. It even explores Curling by using physics. This site even explores the need to make snow for halfpipers etc.

Enough sites with material to put together a nice unit on the mathematics of the Olymics.
Let me know what you think.  I'd love to hear.