Project Overview
Part of studying engineering, or even applying yourself to a field requiring knowledge of engineering, entails studying things other people may overlook in their daily lives. How a person does partly-conscious activities, such as walking in this instance, reveals a plethora of useful information regarding identity. Due to the normality of walking, we were tasked to dig in deeper and explore how a person walks, and construct a predictive model that could output an approximate numerical value on how tall someone may be just based on stride time and length.
To begin, my team divided work on the report and micro-presentation, to ensure completion within the allotted time frame. This report must include various steps of our research that follow our basic hypothesis: Using prior test subjects information to form a predictive model, we can find an approximate value for height on an unknown person (using stride length and time).
Along with our presentation and report, a few key components were valuable before conducting experiments. Most importantly, human nature, and how humans act can vary drastically from person to person. Common abnormalities in humans include: injuries, disabilities, disease and an individual's upbringing, all of which change how one walks. Due to the variety of problems we may face, predictive models in no way can be precise at this level. For that, more research and time is required.
As for our actual preparedness for this task, we studied gait patterns in individuals in our class, and that gave us the roots in which the fundamentals of our report was based. Also, my group looked at in-class activities, such as matching unknown gait analysis numerical values with known people, based on age and height. This introduction gave headway into our research, because here we were able to conclude what a child's gait looked like in comparison to adults. Due to adults being on average much taller than children, stride length increased as did height. At this moment we were able to associate height with stride length and make our hypothesis.
-Matthew Baetkey 10/20/18
To begin, my team divided work on the report and micro-presentation, to ensure completion within the allotted time frame. This report must include various steps of our research that follow our basic hypothesis: Using prior test subjects information to form a predictive model, we can find an approximate value for height on an unknown person (using stride length and time).
Along with our presentation and report, a few key components were valuable before conducting experiments. Most importantly, human nature, and how humans act can vary drastically from person to person. Common abnormalities in humans include: injuries, disabilities, disease and an individual's upbringing, all of which change how one walks. Due to the variety of problems we may face, predictive models in no way can be precise at this level. For that, more research and time is required.
As for our actual preparedness for this task, we studied gait patterns in individuals in our class, and that gave us the roots in which the fundamentals of our report was based. Also, my group looked at in-class activities, such as matching unknown gait analysis numerical values with known people, based on age and height. This introduction gave headway into our research, because here we were able to conclude what a child's gait looked like in comparison to adults. Due to adults being on average much taller than children, stride length increased as did height. At this moment we were able to associate height with stride length and make our hypothesis.
-Matthew Baetkey 10/20/18
Above, you will find our micro-presentation which we were tasked to make using only the vital aspects of our report, most importantly our predictive model and how it works.
Key COncepts
All concepts listed are those that were applied before or during the research and experimentation stage of the report. These can be found listed on the report itself.
-Matthew Baetkey 10/20/18
- Accelerometer: A device that measures the physical acceleration experienced by an object.
- 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 s/he moves his/her limbs.
- Metric: A quantitative 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.
-Matthew Baetkey 10/20/18
Below, you will find links to both the gantt chart (work calendar) and our report.
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Reflection
As with every project, the unfortunate tendency is to have a imperfection here and there, but in the end, it all fall together in the right place. For this project, I would speculate exactly this. To begin however, I would like to go over the impacts I made on making this project a success. First, as a team we did not do a great job communicating, which I will get more into later, but I found a good way to make my voice heard and put my mark into the work. After class, I would text with my teammates and make sure we were all held accountable for the work we needed to get done, so by the due date we had a respectable and sound report to turn in. As well as leading my team outside of school, I was key in orchestrating the second set of trials for our data. The tables from the first set of data we received made little sense, due to slight errors and inconsistencies with our walking. By realizing this error, we were able to move on and make more sense out of the new data we collected, spurring the project back into construction rather than stagnate further. As well, I worked on the project whenever I could in class, and in my free time due to the little in-class time we had to work on it.
Although my personal work ethic and influence on the group's dynamic was overall positive, a few detrimental factors led to the report being harder than need be. First, the construction of the OP-51 left all four members of my group using the entire class period on construction, rather than working on the major report due soon. This left us panicking to gather ourselves and communicate in a timely and efficient manner, which would have been of little issue if we were given the class time like any other group. This issue is something that won't occur again in the year, but was just unfortunate enough to happen to all four of the members in my group, including me. This issue about conflicts with the OP-51 and Gait Analysis led to many smaller problems, besides lack of class time. The interrupting side-task gave me a taste of how to use basic metal working skills, but left me without any room to work on the other major project in the class. This led way to my group's communication issue, which I helped fix. Due to us being split working on the OP-51, not a single member had a chance to coordinate and discuss our project, which led to hours after school of work, which no other group in the class had to do. Besides that, the ultimate result of the project was by all means a success, by delivering a product that was asked for on time, even if it meant losing hair in the process. Maybe this project is just a reflection of the stress and abnormalities engineers face everyday at work? If so, this class took me one step further to being prepared to study mechanical engineering in college, as I wish to in the fall.
-Matthew Baetkey 10/20/18
Although my personal work ethic and influence on the group's dynamic was overall positive, a few detrimental factors led to the report being harder than need be. First, the construction of the OP-51 left all four members of my group using the entire class period on construction, rather than working on the major report due soon. This left us panicking to gather ourselves and communicate in a timely and efficient manner, which would have been of little issue if we were given the class time like any other group. This issue is something that won't occur again in the year, but was just unfortunate enough to happen to all four of the members in my group, including me. This issue about conflicts with the OP-51 and Gait Analysis led to many smaller problems, besides lack of class time. The interrupting side-task gave me a taste of how to use basic metal working skills, but left me without any room to work on the other major project in the class. This led way to my group's communication issue, which I helped fix. Due to us being split working on the OP-51, not a single member had a chance to coordinate and discuss our project, which led to hours after school of work, which no other group in the class had to do. Besides that, the ultimate result of the project was by all means a success, by delivering a product that was asked for on time, even if it meant losing hair in the process. Maybe this project is just a reflection of the stress and abnormalities engineers face everyday at work? If so, this class took me one step further to being prepared to study mechanical engineering in college, as I wish to in the fall.
-Matthew Baetkey 10/20/18