Pole vault pole composite design

One of my favorites was, when we were doing presentations one year, I had two students independently do presentations on pole vault poles, because they were pole vaulters. The interesting thing about a pole vault pole is it's made out of a sheet composite that's rolled up from the corner so that you get more material in the center than you do on the ends — so it's stiffer in the center. Pretty simple, but it teaches you the concepts of stiffness and geometry and material from something simple as designing a pole vault pole.