The ProgrammeThe Programme
Introduction
The NUI Galway BE/MEngSc Sports & Exercise Engineering programme is a professional Engineering programme whose graduates will design systems for monitoring, performing and improving sport and exercise performance.
The use of Engineering in the design of sports and exercise equipment is well established and growing strongly each year. For example, exercise performance can be improved by making exercise equipment more suitable for use by disabled exercisers, by designing systems to increase children’s level of physical activity or by designing more efficient sports equipment that will improve sports performance for the professional and amateur athlete.
Sports & Exercise Engineers design systems to help improve sports and exercise performance.
Monitoring sports and exercise performance properly is essential to help improve that performance. The range of opportunities for the use of engineering in the design of systems to monitor sports and exercise performance is extensive. Examples include developing wearable systems that tell a runner if he/she is on target with an exercise programme and is training within his/her zone, telling a coach in real-time how players are responding physiologically and biomechanically to the demands of competition, providing a rower with real-time feedback on his/her rowing style or encouraging an elderly person to maintain an exercise programme prescribed by his/her doctor.
Sports & Exercise Engineers design systems to monitor and as a result improve sports and exercise performance. The Bachelor of Engineering/Masters of Engineering Science - Sports and Exercise Engineering programme at NUI Galway has a strong multidisciplinary focus. The programme will create a new type of engineer whose training and education will provide him/her with the skills and expertise to design sports and exercise systems with a particular emphasis on:
- Movement Assessment>
- Ambulatory Monitoring of Human Performance
- Systems for the Assessment of Sports and Exercise
The programme will educate engineers to work in three important sectors of employment nationally and internationally:
Sports and Exercise
Today technology is used on a regular basis to improve sports performance in elite athletes and to assist exercisers to monitor and enhance their programme of exercise through a variety of interventions. Sports and exercise constitute a multi-billion euro industry worldwide and play a central role throughout global societies.
Health and Wellness
A key challenge for society is to make exercise and physical activity more attractive to both young and adult populations so as to increase participation in and adherence to exercise. It is anticipated that graduates of the NUI Galway Sports & Exercise Engineering programme will play a major role in developing innovative systems and devices that encourage an active lifestyle. a broad range of users.
Medical Device Industry
It is anticipated that the medical device industry will follow the market demands for exercise systems and devices that will result from the growing elderly and obese populations and that the industry will start to put significant resources into developing systems and devices to facilitate exercise adherence.
