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Innovative Golf Club Design through IoT: Wilson's Driver vs. Driver Competition
Technology Category
- Analytics & Modeling - Digital Twin / Simulation
- Sensors - Level Sensors
Applicable Industries
- Apparel
- Consumer Goods
Applicable Functions
- Product Research & Development
Use Cases
- Driver Performance Monitoring
- Virtual Prototyping & Product Testing
The Challenge
Wilson Sporting Goods Co., a leading manufacturer of high-performance sports equipment, was faced with the challenge of supporting contestants in a golf driver design television show, Driver vs. Driver. The show aimed to encourage innovation in the golf industry by having aspiring golf club designers compete to develop a winning design that would ultimately be produced as Wilson’s next driver. The challenge was to provide the contestants with the necessary tools and expertise to bring their designs to life, while ensuring that the designs were technically sound and met the high expectations of consumers in terms of look, feel, and performance. The increasing competition in the sporting industry and the growing demand for faster, lighter, and stronger equipment added to the complexity of the challenge.
About The Customer
Wilson Sporting Goods Co., a subsidiary of Amer Sports Corporation, is a world-leading manufacturer of high-performance sports equipment, apparel, and accessories. The company is based in Chicago, Illinois and has been focused on helping athletes everywhere reach their true potential since 1914. Wilson invents, designs, and engineers game-changing products using state-of-the-art sports technologies and expertise. They study the relationship between athletes and their equipment, keeping this in mind throughout the development process. Wilson developed a concept for a television competition, Driver vs. Driver, to encourage innovation in the golf industry.
The Solution
Wilson partnered with Altair, a company they had previously worked with on successful projects, to assist in the development of the show. Altair’s technical and industrial design teams worked under the direction of Wilson Labs. They leveraged virtual design technologies to rapidly explore concepts and optimize aerodynamics. Altair ProductDesign industrial designers and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) experts used solidThinking Evolve, a design tool that allows rapid concept development and creation of digital models from sketches and ideas. This tool played a key role in enabling the contestants and the designers to explore multiple structural and aesthetic iterations. Altair HyperWorks’ Virtual Wind Tunnel (VWT), a CFD tool developed specifically to simulate and analyze the aerodynamics of a given object, was used to analyze the aerodynamics performance of the initial designs. This allowed the contestants to make significant improvements to their designs.
Operational Impact
Quantitative Benefit
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