For those of you who may be unfamiliar with this whole story, I started out as a physics major at Kettering University in October of 2007. In January 2008, I had my first work co-op rotation in January 2008 on campus working with Dr. Ludwigsen on Helmholtz resonators and other various things. It started out as a how do I use the lab equipment and what can I learn about sticks. We started getting s
tick donations from companies and people started asking questions. In June 2008 I started working on my previous co-op in the automotive industry but still spent about 6-8 hours outside of class per week during school term in the lab working on the stick project. As I gained years in school, taking harder classes, Dr. Russell started expecting more of me and then in August 2009, Warrior Sports came calling, wanting to hire me, so I joined them in August. I started off working in lacrosse but in January 2010 I switched over to the hockey division, trying to bring science into Warrior since we currently do not do a whole lot of science and physics in the development of sticks. It is a lot of trial and error. I am currently working on my undergraduate thesis on the vibrational characteristics of hockey sticks and how it relates to player perception of feel. In addition to this, I am working to try and improve the feel of composite goalie sticks. Most of my testing is vibrational testing: Experimental modal analysis (EMA) which looks at how each data point on a stick vibrates with respect to every other point on the stick. Also, I do a couple different damping test - to figure out the damping ratio and the decay rate. Also, I am working on developing a test that is a full-scale shooting test. After I graduate in December 2011, I hope to work for a sporting goods company and maybe go to graduate school for sports engineering or sports biomechanics. Ultimately, I hope to design sticks for a hockey company. This page is designed to have a bunch of information about what is going on with my work on hockey sticks. Feel free to contribute.