This project allowed us to examine people's gaits. Gait analysis is used in kinematic and biological science. This form of science is applied to chiropractic medicine, osteopathic medicine, biometric identification, medical diagnosis, and comparative biomechanics. The goal of our project was to find out what traits one's gait can indicate.
In our experiment, we examined how one’s gait can provide insight as to how tall they are. We measured participants' heights, leg heights (up to their hips), knee height, foot height (from bottom of foot to bottom of ankle), and foot length. We then measured the frequency and acceleration of participants’ steps as they walked 10 meters. We obtained over 1000 lines of data from our experiments. After graphing the data of each participant, we found that the lower the frequency of a person’s steps were, the shorter they were. This trend followed an exponential curve.
Accelerometer: a tool to measure the acceleration of an object's movements
Dynamicity: In terms of gait analysis, the quantification of variations in kinematic or kinetic parameters within a step
Gait: the stride of a human as they move their limbs
Metric: a quantitive indicator of a characteristic or attribute
Model: In technology, a description of observed or predicted behavior of some system, simplified by ignoring certain details. Models allow complex systems to be understood and their behavior predicted.
Symmetry: In terms of gait analysis, the quantification of differences between left-foot and right-foot steps.
Variability: In terms of gait analysis, the quantification of fluctuations from one stride to the next.
Our sample size was very small, as we only had four group members; however, by expanding our sample size, we believe that we would be able to find the same trends. The time restraint of this project limited the number of trials we were able to do, which we will remedy in future experiments.
In this project, I learned how to use the “Physics Toolbox Accelerometer” app. I also furthered my understanding of Google sheets. Our group was not very organized during this project, as we struggled to balance our time between our Capstone Project and our Gait Analysis Project. While we managed to finish the project on time, we were unable to complete the number of trials that we would have liked. I personally had a lot of fun with this project because I am in a group with extremely fun people. Our group had fun joking about our gaits. I think that this project could have become fairly tedious if we didn't talk and joke as much as we did, as it was simply walking back and forth with a phone taped to our leg. Overall, I had fun with this project and learned that there is a lot more to many of the simple day to day tasks that we take for granted.