Taking the Oakley test

By Matt Cooper Last updated: 11th August 2010

The Rolling O Lab is a 40-foot laboratory-come-truck that travels to sporting events all over Europe showcasing the beauty and high performance of Oakley eyewear.

At the recent Open Championship in St Andrews the Rolling O Lab parked itself on the driving range and become one of the hottest spots for golfers to spend half an hour getting a demo from the Oakley crew.

Oakley players Ian Poulter and Ricky Barnes were obvious stars, but Alvaro Quiros probably had the best time of anyone.

He was particularly taken with the impact tests. The first fires a steel pellet into a normal pair of sunglasses which then shatter on impact (much to the astonishment of the Spaniard!). He then watched the same test repeated on the Oakley lenses which withstood the impact easily.

The second impact test allowed Quiros to drop a heavy spike onto lenses and the result was similar - normal lenses smashing, Oakley's refusing to do so, proving their extra safety in accidents and crashes.

Five time Open Champion Tom Watson also popped in to witness the tests as did newly crowned US Open Champion Graeme McDowell - and even Louis Oosthuizen, too, a man who didn't know it at the time but was about to become a major winner himself later in the week!

Meanwhile Henrik Stenson lounged around outside the Lab, being interviewed by the BBC.

To learn more about the tests, read below and to catch the photos visit the gallery.

THE OAKLEY EYEWEAR TEST

It consists of four key attributes - two optical and two impact related.

The optical tests have allowed Oakley to ensure that their technology and their eyewear provides the greatest possible clarity, maximising performance. Oakley eyewear pass these tests with flying colours ...

Optical Test 1 - Lasers

Two lasers beams are directed through a lens onto a single point, similar to the centre of a hand-gun target. When eyewear is placed in front of the beams they should continue to focus on this same point. This means that the image you would see through the sunglasses is aligned exactly as it should be. The benefit to the wearer is that their eyes do not need to work hard to correct for a shift in the image, allowing for greater mental concentration for longer periods.

Optical Test 2 - Clarity

Clarity is key when wearing sunglasses, as the amount of light being let into the eye must be reduced without detriment to the wearers vision. A high definition camera picks up a pattern displayed 35 feet away. When eyewear is placed in front of the camera it is possible to see the image that your eyes would pick up before they adjust. If the image is not clear through the lenses then, as before, the wearers eyes need to work harder to make sense of the picture they see.

The impact tests are the gold standard for measuring eyewear safety and prove that Oakley innovations such as Plutonite lens material maximise resistance to high impact.

Impact Test 1 - The Spike

The Spike represents a high-mass object travelling at low speeds, such as the type of impact found when mountain biking or skiing as you fall or, in golfing terms, it could represent being hit with a club. In the test a 500g steel spike is dropped from a height of 1.27m directly onto the lens. The lens must stay in one piece and no material can enter the eye - in simple terms both the lens and frame must protect the eye from the full impact.

Impact Test 2 - The Shot

The Shot refers to a ¼ inch steel ball bearing being fired at the lens from 8 inches away. Travelling at around 100mph, the steel ball represents being hit by a stone chip from a passing vehicle or a golf ball at a relatively close distance. Again, the lens and frame must protect the eye from impact and no lens material can enter the eye.

To see video of these tests click here.

Note: these four test form the ANSI Z87.1 Industrial Eyewear Protection Standards. Oakley don't just pass these standards, but set new boundaries on how they are set.