Master by Research students from Italy complete theses in Augmented Sports
For almost ten years now, Mid Sweden University has been collaborating with a number of partner universities from Italy and Austria where we offer project courses for students who want to delve into the subject of sports technology in their master's degree.
In early February, exchange students Giorgia La Chiesa, Gianmarco Rocco and Simone Demichelis landed in Östersund to take on degree projects that are all linked to the large Augmentet Sports research project that has been going on at the Sports Tech Research Center for a few years now.
Simone who usually studies at the University of Turin is looking forward to a different experience.
– I want to focus both on the actual experience of living in and discovering another country, while completing my master's degree from Turin, he says.
His compatriot Gianmarco, who previously studied mechanical engineering at the University of Padua, agrees.
– This is a good opportunity to study abroad. I chose Östersund because I was interested in something sports-related, he says.
– I am curious about living in another country with other traditions and this is very different to Italy. I also want to know what it's like to live independently and get to know a new culture, interjects Giorgia.
The three exchange students have all been given the opportunity to choose a degree project that connects to Augmentet Sports. The research project, which is divided into different sub-projects, wants to contribute to improving the development of new equipment and technology in both broad sports as well as elite sports and para sports.
– My project is about reviewing how we can make sitskis more affordable for people with disabilities, as they are very expensive to produce. Among other things, I investigate the different properties of a sitski, says Gianmarco.
– My focus is to develop test methods for how to measure the warming properties of different types of boots. The final goal is for the solution to be both useful and financially sustainable for boot producers to use, adds Simone.
– In my project I analyze videos from crashes in the Alpine World Cup. I will use the measured speed of the skier's collision with the snow, and with the help of our test equipment see how the snow is affected by the corresponding force to better understand how to improve measurement methods in protective equipment, says Giorgia.
Andrey Koptyug is the supervisor of all three students. He is also one of the researchers involved in the Augmented Sports research project.
– Our collaboration with the Italian universities in Padua and Turin has been very successful and is positive in several respects. It is not least important for a university to make exchanges, also at student level. We receive interesting input from the students through their project work which is carried out within the framework of the research conducted at our research centre. Hopefully, our master students will also take many good memories with them when they travel back home.
– Research that has been done together with international master by research students have already provided interesting and a few publications. We intend to continue and expand this cooperation, and hope that it will bring further useful results in joint research activities, concludes Andrey.
The collaboration has been carried out within the framework of the Augmented Sports project, which is carried out with the support of the European Regional Development Fund / the Swedish Agency for Economic and Regional Growth, and where the municipality of Östersund is also involved as a financier.