As a topic of socio-technical debate, we further examined the sports engineering programs that are established at University of Oregon, University of Maryland, and University of Georgia, and their partnerships with Nike, Underarmour, and EvoShield, respectively.  This gave us a foundation for the beginnings of our three week course.  Lafayette College and the University of Colorado Denver share similar contexts, each carrying a high percentage of students who are interested or involved in sports.  We completed extensive research on the Sports Engineering Program implemented at the University of Colorado Denver. After successfully launching their first Introduction to Sports Engineering course in 2010, The University of Colorado has been able to follow through and establish a program providing graduate degrees in Sports Engineering. Following this cohesion, along with analogous goals and objectives we found that it would be beneficial to use the guidelines set by University of Colorado for the foundation of our Sports and Engineering Course.

Our approach to Sports Engineering was to continue on a course curriculum based path modeled after the aforementioned program.  Our team contacted representatives with Nike, the current provider for primary athletic apparel and gear for Lafayette athletics.  Our intention is for Nike to become an important resource in the course’s direction by providing insight to students about what goes on behind the scenes of athletics at Lafayette.  Not only will this benefit our program and our students’ knowledge, but Nike will be able to obtain an additional academic program allowing for the development of sports technology and innovative gear for the future.