A gait is defined as the way in which a person walks, and for this project, we were supposed to record data on people's styles of walking in order to predict the age or height of the person. Four different subjects were analyzed and, using an app called Physics Toolbox Accelerometer, we collected the time it took to walk 10 steps, distance traveled, time, and the acceleration in all 3 axes. 6 trials were taken per subject: the right shin, left shin, and lower abdomen were all tested twice.
Concepts
Accelerometer- a device that measures the physical acceleration experienced by an object
Dynamicity- the quantification of variations in kinematic or kinetic parameters within a step
Gait- the stride of a human as s/he moves his/her limbs
Metric- a quantitative indicator of a characteristic or attribute
Model- 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- the quantification of differences between left-foot and right-foot steps
Variability- the quantification of fluctuations from one stride to the next
Dynamicity- the quantification of variations in kinematic or kinetic parameters within a step
Gait- the stride of a human as s/he moves his/her limbs
Metric- a quantitative indicator of a characteristic or attribute
Model- 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- the quantification of differences between left-foot and right-foot steps
Variability- the quantification of fluctuations from one stride to the next
Reflection
This project was very difficult. We were given two days to collect data and my group spent most of the time trying to decide what data would be best to record. The project didn't get worked on very much after this. Our group's main weakness was little communication outside of school which made it difficult to get much done, especially while trying to work on the OP-51 and our capstone projects at the same time. However,the data that we collected was very accurate, especially because we tested two trials each. Although, some of our results were a little funky. One subject had a longer stride length than another despite being shorter than the other, which threw off our results a bit because the predictive model assumed that the taller a person is, the longer their strides must be. Another thing our group did well was being able to accept each other's constructive criticism so we could make our project as best as possible.