Ingenium status – sailing?

I just thought it was about time I posted a little more on what is going on with development in my company and what else I am spending time on.

First and foremost, Ingenium Golf and its related products are coming along nicely. The past week have been crammed with meetings and prototype work, and we are getting really close to having the final product ready for release. We redefined some of the software development goals, making things better for as well the user and our development process – I had a great meeting with a possible manufacturer of all the electronics we need – and our investment plan is getting very close to being completely accepted closing our deals for the next 6 months. So all in all, things are great, and I simply love working on it.

Other than the golf project, I was invited to join a workshop on developing similar concepts for elite competitive sailing, hosted by Sailing Aarhus today. It was a great workshop highlighting some of the many challenges with sailing as a spectator sport. It was a perfect match with my competencies from both Ingenium and my masters thesis, so I had a lot of ideas and some really great networking with the other attendants. I even started a small venture into some prototyping together with some of the attendants, creating a simpler way of tracking all the data available on the ship – maybe a new branch of Ingenium sometime in the future? Anywho, it was a great day for networking and concept development, and hopefully the nice people from Sailing Aarhus will get something out of it.

So yeah, things are running full speed, and all I need right now is some kind of money source for my daily bills to be right where I want to be :-D

Life as a writer and graphical wiz

The past few weeks I have been working hard on getting press materials ready for our first product launch in Ingenium Golf, and have learned a thing or two about the process…

It is hard, damn hard. I thought writing all those pesky articles and reports at the university was hard getting done, but this seems much harder. Compacting everything you know and love about a product that has been over two years under way into 12-15 sentences for a folder is almost impossible. Something always seems to be missing, or it gets too long, or the pictures aren’t good enough, or the text is the same as on the webpage, or, or, or – I could go on for quite a while. Seems much easier to write stuff like this. No wonder novels get so long…

Other than that I am really getting to love all of Adobe’s awesome programs even more. Switching between InDesign, Illustrator, Muse and Photoshop is seamless and everything works – I just wish I were a lot better at Photoshop sometimes. Good thing I have connections :-)

Anywho, this was just a little rambling about what I am doing these days. Tomorrow it is all about the hardware and getting things to talk to each other. Going to be fun getting the soldering iron out of the toolbox again, and hopefully I wont burn any of the very expensive circuits I have laying around.

Page updates

I just updated some of the contents of the page.

The “Socialize” widget to the right has been updated with my LinkedIn information.

On top of that, I have added an “About” page that shows some general information about me as well as my full resume directly from LinkedIn.

I think this is about it, for what I want to be on the site structurally, and now I just need to add projects and stuff to make it all up-to-date.

First post on new blog/homepage

This is where everything is going to come together as one big platform of me :-

Turning a new leaf in life (from almost 20 years of school to doing whatever I want), I am, from this day forward, going to use this page as my blogging and idea portal instead of the different pages I have previously used. This is where I’ll post all the personal/funny/weird stuff I usually posted on the .blogspot blog along with concept ideas, projects I am working on and other things. The only thing that, for now, is going to be kept separate is the Android blog I am running on android.jamtheman.com – but in the the near future all posts from that site will also show up here.

To make it all a little easier on the eye, things are going to be categorized, so you don’t have to put up with all the personal/random stuff if you are looking for something a little more serious and the other way around.

So, welcome to this new portal of Jam, and good luck to you and to me ;-)

Cand. Scient. ICT Product Development eksamen

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The characteristics of a good golf swing

In general, the golf swing consists of four parts that add up to a complete and great swing: The grip, the posture and stance, the backswing and the forward swing (consisting of the downswing and followthrough). All four parts are as basic and important as the others, and “if they are done correctly any player can brake 80” [Hogan – The Modern Fundamentals of Golf].
The grip
The first thing a player does before he is about to make a golf swing is to grip the chosen club, and the way this connection between the player and the club is made has a monumental effect on the rest the swing. The goal of the grip is to gain control of the club without having to squeeze it too hard, as well as to distribute power from the body to the club without one hand being significantly stronger, and thereby in more control, than the other.
To achieve this the player grips the club first with his left hand (for right handed golfers) placing it at the end of the club, holding it mostly at the base of his fingers. Then the right hand is placed just below the left, with the little finger of the right hand placed on top of or interlocked with the index finger of the left hand. This connection between the two hands in the grip allows as much power as possible to be transferred to the club and ultimately the ball.

  • Posture and Stance

After gripping the club correctly the player takes his stance next to the ball. This is where he aligns his body to the desired shot, and gets it ready to perform. The first, and for many one of the hardest, part of the stance, is aiming in the right direction, done by taking the stance and aligning the body orthogonally on the ball’s desired trajectory. The most important part of the stance though, is getting the posture right to enable the body to deliver maximum power to the club.

  • Arms, shoulders and head

From the grip and down, the first part to get right is the arms and shoulders. As the player addresses the ball, both arms should be fully extended with the pits of the elbows pointing towards the sky, and pressed as closely together as possible, without bending the arms. With both arms stretched and a correct grip, the right shoulder should naturally be a little lower than the left shoulder. In spite of the displacement of the right shoulder, the head should still be placed in the center of the body, looking straight towards the ball.

  • Back and legs

Next up are back and the legs, where a lot of the power is generated, and the general motion of the swing is defined. The back should be straight and tilted a bit forward, towards the ball, resulting in the rear shooting a little out backwards. To maintain balance and control as leaning forwards with the back, the legs should bent slightly at the knees, placing the player in the best possible position to strike the ball. The angle in the back allows the player to rotate around the back throughout the swing while maintaining the back’s angle as well as the head’s position.

  • Feet

The last part of the stance is the feet, a mostly forgotten, but indeed very crucial, part when players are working on their swing and stance. The common rule is to place the feet apart from each other with approximately the same width as the player’s shoulders, to maintain good balance without spreading them too far, and thereby limiting their flexibility. What players don’t realize is that not only is the feet the main point of balance correction, it is also where all the forces produced in the swing are mounted on the ground giving basis for it to actually be powerful.

  • Balance

This means that the placement of the feet should vary with the different kinds of shots the player wants to make; a little wider for the longer and harder hitting shots and a little narrower for shorter precision shots. On top of that, most of the player’s weight should slightly more on the heals than the rest of the feet. As Hogan puts it:

“Your weight should be a bit more on the heels than on the balls of your feet, so that, if you wanted to, you would be able to lift your toes inside your shoes”.
– Hogan, p.56


Maintaining this weight distribution should give the players as much grip on the ground a possible as well as it automatically affords the correct posture in the rest of the body.

  • The backswing

The next part of the swing, is where the first actual motion of the swing is carried out, the backswing. This is the part of the swing that builds up tension in the muscles and prepares the body to perform the forward swing. The goal of the backswing therefore is to reach a position in which the player has maximum tension while maintaining control of the club and its motion.

  • Chain action motion – hands, arms, shoulders, hips

To best build up the tension and ready the muscles for the forward swing, the motion towards the top of the backswing should be a chain action motion that is the reverse of the downswing, as explained later. The player should start the motion with the hands, lifting the club up and to the right, by flexing the wrists, and then start moving the hands and club to the right. Moving the hands to the right automatically starts the next part of the chain action motion, moving the arms and the shoulders. To maintain as great an arc as possible for the clubhead to travel on, an thereby to gain speed and power on, the left arm must be kept stretched throughout the backswing. This automatically leads to bending of the right arm as the club gets closer to the top. At the top of the backswing a line through the left arm (still straight) should point almost directly down at the ball, meaning that the shoulders must have rotated about 90 degrees. The rotation of the arms and shoulders automatically makes the hips turn and the player flex his legs a little. The hips should not turn more than necessary to turn the shoulders, as the tension created in the muscles of the legs, hips, back, shoulders and arms will be at their full potential at this point, with the entire body wound up like a stretched rubber band.

  • Balance
    • Rotates in hips and transfers most weight to right foot

The entire motion, and especially the rotation in the hips and the flexing of the legs results in a shift of the players weight and center of balance towards the right foot. Shifting the weight over is not only a natural part of the players motion to maintain balance, but also a key factor in adding power to shot, as it allows the player to shift the weight back to the left foot as part of the forward swing, adding all that power to the ball. Hogan notes that the shift in weight has an effect on the feets contact with the ground as well:

“Let me caution you against lifting the left heel too high off the ground on the backswing. If the heel stays on the ground – fine. If it comes up and inch off the ground – fine. No higher than that, though – it will only lead to faulty balance and other undesirable complications.”
– Hogan, p.74

Throughout the backswing, the player should imagine that there is a plane going from the ball through his neck and is parallel to the direction he is aiming. As the players left arm gets to about hip level he should keep it as close to the plane as possible through the rest of the backswing without ever raising it above the plane. This helps to get to the right position at the top of the backswing and adds control.

  • The forwards swing (downswing and follow through)

All the previous parts of the full swing are parts that readies the body for the forward swing in various ways, adding power while maintaining control. If they are done correctly, the motion of the forward swing should be natural, and hereby allow the player to apply full power without doing the fundamentals wrong and lose control.

  • Reverse chain action motion – hips, shoulders, arms, hands

As mentioned earlier, the downswing is a chain action motion reversed of the backswing – hips, shoulders, arms, hands. The natural motion and control of the forward swing originates in the chain action motion, as the turning and movement of the hips will naturally turn the shoulders which turns the arms and at last the hands. Turning the hips and starting the chain action motion releases the power build up in the backswing, releasing the stretched rubber band.

After the ball is hit, the followthrough starts with the club reaching its maximum speed just after contact. The rest of the followthrough is about decelerating the club without losing control by letting it travel as long as possible, putting it to a stop behind the player over his left shoulder. During the followthrough, the rotation started in the downswing is continues to the point where the hips are orthogonal on the balls line of flight, and the shoulders are rotated even more. A result of this turn is that the heel of the right foot has left the ground and only the toes are on the ground and the right leg is rotated almost 90 degrees to allow the rotation of the rest of the body.
Just as in the backswing, to allow the clubhead to travel the largest possible distance, and thereby gaining the highest possible speed and power, one arm should be fully stretched throughout the forward swing. During the downswing it is the left arm, and just after the ball is hit the right arm is stretched and stays that way, leaving it to the right arm to bend and allow the last parts of the rotation.

  • Balance

During the forward swing, the weight should be shifted back from the left foot towards the right foot, done rotating the body and moving the hips laterally towards the left. Hogan describes the the shift in balance with these four quotes:

“Turn your hips back to the left. There must be enough lateral motion forward to transfer the weight to the left foot”
– Hogan, p.90

“Starting the hips back also takes the pressure off the right leg, and as this happens, the weight flows to the left leg”
– Hogan, p.92

“When your weight doesn’t get sufficiently transferred to the left, your arc is cramped, and your body, arms and hands cannot release the full power they’re capable of pouring into the shot”
– Hogan p.107

“The left leg breaks resiliently to the left, and as the bulk of the weight rides forward to the left side of the left foot, the leg bows out toward the target”
– Hogan, p.108


As the player swings the club forward, he should again imagine a plane to move the clubhead along. The plane is almost identical to the one in the backswing, only tilted a little further as a result of the hips movement to the left, but still with fixed points at the player’s neck and at the ball.

Long time no blog

Der er sket meget over de sidste mange måneder og det er jo desværre gået lidt ud over min tid til at blogge, som jeg ellers gerne ville. Men her kommer der så lige en lille update på hvad jeg går og roder med…

Studiet:
Det går super godt, til trods for at man efterhånden godt kan mærke at skruen strammes og afleveringstidspunktet nærmer sig. Det er planen at aflevere den skriftlige opgave d. 16. juni og så holde mundtlig eksamen en af de sidste dage i juni. Vi har været gode til at få skrevet lidt undervejs, og er lige nu så langt at vi skal skrive ca 1,5 side om dagen for at nå målet. Så det lyder overkommeligt, men alting tager jo længere end man forventer, især når vejret er blevet så godt…
Der er en begrænset mængde statusopdateringer på projekt bloggen.

Firmaet:
En måske endnu større tidssluger end studiet er firmaet, som jeg lige nu knokler røven ud af bukserne for at få stablet på benene. Der er meget at se til! Lige fra oprettelsen af selve virksomheden og ansættelsesaftaler til prototype udvikling og produktion. Og hvis det ikke skulle være nok, så skal der også lige klargøres hjemmeside og andet pressemateriale inden launch i starten af juni. Det er super fedt være i gang med, men jeg kunne godt bruge 36 timer i døgnet i øjeblikket.
Se mere på www.ingeniumgolf.dk eller .com

Livet:
Tjah. Livet er jo en smule sat på standby med alle de andre ting jeg skal tage mig af, men ikke desto mindre er det skønt. For ikke så længe siden var Tine og jeg fx i Skagen på hygge weekend, og de sidste par fantastiske sommerdage har vi da også nydt nogle timer på stranden OG i vandet! Tine flytter snart i ny lejlighed og det bliver super lækkert ikke længere at skulle forholde sig til alt bøvlet på kollegiet. Hvor jeg selv bor om 6 måneder er lidt usikker, da Steffen og Maria nu for alvor er begyndt at snakke om at flytte sammen, men forhåbentlig giver firmaet et nogenlunde afkast til den tid, så jeg kan blive boende eller finde et tilsvarende sted tæt på Tine.

Det var lige en hurtig opdatering på hvad jeg render og laver, og mon ikke der kommer lidt flere af dem sommeren over? Ellers poster jeg lidt mere flittigt på Google+, så der kan man nok bedre følgende med, hvis det skulle have interesse!

Keep smilin