CQUniversity Australia
 

Engaging Indigenous people within Higher Ed

CQUniversity's Office of Indigenous Engagement recently hosted a visit from the Oodgeroo Unit of Queensland University of Technology (QUT), at Rockhampton Campus.

Professor Anita Lee Hong, Director of the Oodgeroo Unit, and Lone Pearce, Project Officer, met with Office of Indigenous Engagement staff to discuss employment issues and best practice models for engaging Indigenous people within the higher education sector, including governance matters.

Full Details…

Other News…

New device keeps tabs on cyclists' hearts 

Published on 09 December, 2005 

Central Queensland University’s Health and Human Performance technical officer Greg Capern has developed a heart monitoring device that is changing the way local cyclists train in Central Queensland.

The PACER system was born out of a need of cycling coach Ken Tucker. He needed to know what the heart rate of a cyclist was when following him on a motorbike (motor pacing).

PhotoID:2731 “He wanted to set the pace based on the cyclists’ heart rate, but there was no product on the market available which met his needs,” Mr Capern explained.

Over six months I designed and built a couple of prototypes with some technical assistance from Grant Caynes from the Centre for Railway Engineering. With some valuable testing and validation of the protypes by Mr Tucker and CQU exercise physiologist Ben Dascombe, the PACER system was developed.

PACER calculates the heart rate from the commercially available POLAR heart rate chest strap and sends the information up to 200m by radio to a display unit.

Mr Capern said Mr Tucker is now happy with the device and has since made his cyclists travel 5km/h faster than he used to before the information was available. He also uses it to monitor athletes’ heart rate during normal training and racing at the velodrome.

“I am sure that the athletes have mixed feelings about their coach knowing how hard they are working.

“It’s great to contribute and to continue to develop the strong links CQU has with the Rockhampton and Queensland cycling community.”.

Mr Capern won the best paper award at the recent HESTA (Health and Exercise Science Technologists Association) Conference in Brisbane for his work on PACER.

PhotoID:2732 He won a $500 grant to attend a conference of his choice next year.

As a newcomer to the field of health and sports technology, Mr Capern was surprised and delighted to get the recognition from his peers. He has a background in medical physics and electronics engineering.

Greg’s award is the third national award for School of Health and Human Performance in the last 18 months, following former staff members Darren Joubert (now at Curtin University) and Adam Bryant (now at University of Melbourne) and their national research award successes.

Photo: Greg Capern fits CQU exercise physiologist and keen cyclist Ben Dascombe with the innovative heart monitoring device.