HANOVER, N.H. (AP) — On the Ivy League campus of Dartmouth College, even the football tackling dummies are smart.
The team introduced a new MVP as the first practice of the season got underway Wednesday. Not a most valuable player, but a "Mobile Virtual Player" — a padded, remote-controlled figure designed to allow players to make full contact while minimizing head and neck injuries.
The project started two years ago when coach Buddy Teevens asked Dartmouth's engineering school to create a safer way for players to practice tackling. Students, some of them athletes themselves, came up with a motorized system encased in foam that simulates a real football player in size, weight, agility and speed.