Team GB’s Olympic Rowing Teams,
who performed so brilliantly at the
2012 London Olympic Games, used
instrumentation designed and built
by Loughborough University’s Sports
Technology Institute
and the English
Institute For
Sport based on
the DSCUSB
digital strain
gauge amplifier
supplied by Aptifirst to help
sports scientists and technologists to
optimise their performance.

The computer-configured, highly
accurate DSCUSB allows strain gauge
devices to be connected directly to a
computer via a USB port, and is
available in cased and uncased PCB
versions. The uncased version has the
benefit of being very light in weight.

The DSCUSB is available in both
High Stability and Industrial Stability
versions, allowing a choice of
resolutions up to 1 part in
400,000, and speeds of
reading up to
500Hz. The
device is
supplied with a
software app to
allow it to be configured and for
the data to be displayed and logged.