Category: History

I have been overwhelmed by figure skating since the first time it saw it on TV when I was a kid. Since there were no ice rinks anywhere near where I lived, I started learning artistic skating on roller skates; although too late. I knew how to skate, but was too old to learn how to do the jumps and spins as my body wasn’t flexible and strong enough. From my experience, I describe figure skating as one of the toughest sports out there. There is an immense strength and sense of balance required to execute each element but at the same time it has to be carried out gracefully. I have been fascinated by the movements in figure skating and hence decided to explore the biomechanics of it.

 

 

One of the experts in this field is Deborah King, Vice chair of US figure skating sports science & medical committee. She started figure skating as a stint when working as a research assistant for the US olympic committee. She studied the biomechanics behind the sport to help skaters analyze their movements and improve their jumps for competitive figure skating. In her paper “A Kinematic Analysis Between Triple and Quadruple Revolution Figure Skating Jump”, she describes how, to make more revolutions, the skater must either increase their rotational speed or jump higher or do both. In an NBC series of sport sciences, she described how conservation of angular momentum plays a role in executing the spins. She explained this by spinning on an office chair and demonstrating how tucking in her arms make her spin faster while spreading them out makes her slow down. Watching that made me remember something my coach used to say, “You don’t spin with your legs..you spin with your hands..”. Essentially, to spin faster, all you have to do is decrease your moment of inertia around the axis of symmetry. While helping King analyse her movements, Rachel Flatt, a figure skater describes her experience with spins, “It’s hard to stay in a straight position when you’re being pulled outside in every direction!”

I read another paper from a Spine technology and rehabilitation center. It described how the skate plays in important role to support the body’s natural biomechanics. The blade of the skate is slightly curved so as to make the skater follow a curved path easily. The front part of the skate is almost a loop to support the skater’s natural plantarflexion- which is restricted due to the boots. Even the heel height contributes to the biomechanics by shifting the center of gravity of the skater forward.

The immense science behind the crossovers, the jumps, spins, the spread eagle and flying camel is described in the paper. The authors explain the position of optimal function in muscle balancing and felxibility. A mistake in starting position of the jumps and spins result in huge and traumatic injuries- from fractures to head concussions. There is a direct relation of the skater’s muscle & bone structure to their performance. I finally realised what the 2011 Olympic champion, Yuna Kim said about her skating, “I am built to skate..”

In response to Design for Wearability … “Wearability is defined as the interaction between the human body and the wearable object. Dynamic wearability extends that definition to include the human body in motion. … Study of the human body focuses on form & dynamics.”

This study notes that there are human-centric factors (placement on the body, shape definition, human movement, human perception of space, body size diversity) as well as device-centric factors (containment, weight, accessibility, sensory interaction, thermal, aesthetics, and effects of long-term use) in the pursuit of designing wearables. But … this study deals exclusively with the human factors. More accurately, this article deals with the surface ad aesthetics of the human form, rather than the actual mechanisms of the human body. Words like: surface ( word count: 7), size (15), curves (5), concave (4), convex (4), spaces (3), etc are used at every turn. In this study,  the body is treated more like an autonomous blob than a machine.

For example, placement was determined by editing the extensive human surface area via needs of body size diversity, average movement/flexibility on regions of larger surface area. All proceeding factors are determined similarly; comfort, manageability and unobtrusiveness—rather than in-depth mechanical motion study—are determined without reason to be the subfactors that inform critical decisions.

As an added bonus, the conclusion section provides us with this wonderful dis claimer: “Static, anthropomorphic data exists, however, dynamic understanding and measurements of the human body do not. We have collected information that has aided us in our development of wearable systems.” So essentially, biomechanics exist, that’s all dandy but kinda complicated, let’s  stick to general surveys of human qualities.

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Famous in Biomechanics: Anatomy & Art (Meyerhold’s Biomechanics excercises, below)

Vsevolod Meyerhold is not exactly remembered as an early biomechanist, an engineer, or a scientist. Meyerhold, a Soviet theatre director, actor and producer, was known for his provocative experiments dealing with biomechanics and symbolism in an unconventional theatre settings.

“If the tip of the nose works – so does the whole body” — Meyerhold

Theatrical Biomechanics is an anti-realistic system of dramatic production developed in the Soviet Union in the early 1920s by Meyerhold himself. Where (American) method acting melded the character with the actor’s own personal memories to create motivation, Meyerhold connected psychological and physiological processes. Inspired by Stanislavski, Meyerhold’s Biomechanics material asked the actor to become a perfect machine, not relying upon the anatomy, but upon the possibilities of his body, as a material for stage performance. Constantly asking the actor to observe himself during a performance, maintaining the synthesis between the creation and the material from which that creation is made.

The introduction of biomechanics into the theatre, via Meyerhold’s intentions, is part of a constant effort to get back to the roots of the theater: to never to let theater be the same as life.

my blog: http://itp.nyu.edu/~ps2409/Peiqi/?p=454

I love interaction design. It’s gleeful for me to look over the world and analyze each deficiency. Surprisingly, there are huge number of daily things that are not easy to interaction with, such as vending machines, tap-in doors, microwaves and even refrigerators. I kept asking “what makes it difficult to do”.  Then I realized it’s more crucial to know “what happens when people done something”. Since PEOPLE is the core of interactions, I want to learn how our body moves, for example how we walks, how we hold things, how we touch things. By learning these, I could be able to understand interaction design better, and explore ways to re-design everyday things, to make them easy to use and compelling to use.

Don Norman: Designing For People

Donald Arthur Norman is an academic in the field of cognitive science, design and usability engineering. I love his words “Designing For People”. In the study area of humans, from my point of view, his work shares same spirit with (at least part of) the works in biomechanics, which is the study of the structure and function of biological systems, such as humans, by means of the methods of mechanics. Both of them concerned how human’s body works in order to make things from the point of people and for the target of people. Another same spirit is that both works bridge the gaps between people and things serving people, and both of them are study in interdisciplinary.

Don Norman has a wide variety of backgrounds. He is born in December 25, 1935. In 1957, he received an B.S. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS). Then he earned M.S. in EECS and Ph.D in Mathematical Psychology. After graduating, Norman took up a postdoctoral fellowship at the Center for Cognitive Studies at Harvard University. Four years later, he took a position as an Associate Professor in the Psychology Department at UCSD. He used to be Vice President of Research ar Apple Computer and helped change the product process to emphasize the total user experience form product conception through shipping. He also worked in HP, and now are providing executive-level management consulting on human-centered design.Maybe it is his rich experiences in different areas that make him successful in a cross-discipline.

His book, The Design of Everyday Things, inspired me so much. This is the book which open my eyes to really observe things around me. After several months of observation, I find it is crucial for designers to understand the body movements and basic anatomy. That’s why I am excited about the Biomechanics class. In the book, one interesting point is “the problem with doors”. When we approach a door, we have to figure out both the side to open and how to open it. It seems a very simple interaction, however, it could be a challenge in our daily life. Doors have amazing variety. Some need to push; some pull; some lift; some slide; some swipe cards; some insert card; some open only if a button is pushed; some do not have any sign to instruct how to open. Sometimes it’s even hard to know weather we should push a door or pull it, so we have to try our chances.

The picture above solved the door problem very well. They are different handles on a car. Each of them designed based on the corresponding movements of human’s hand. The left handle lies vertically, which fits the hand to hold in a vertical position. The right handle is horizontal, which indicates the hand should hold in a horizontal position. Both handle coupled with overhang and indentation that indicate to pull. I think this is a excellent example to use biomechanics to solve design problems.

References:
Wikipedia page of Donald Norman: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Norman
Don Norman’s jnd.org: http://www.jnd.org/
Biomechanics Wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biomechanics#Applications

links broken in this post. For links please see my blog:
http://itp.nyu.edu/~hm825/mishin_control/?p=528

Biomimetics defined by Merriam-Webster:
“the study of the formation, structure, or function of biologically produced substances and materials (as enzymes or silk) and biological mechanisms and processes (as protein synthesis or photosynthesis) especially for the purpose of synthesizing similar products by artificial mechanisms which mimic natural ones”

 

The aspects of biomechanics which are the most compelling, for me, are not associated with the human form specifically, but rather in how bodies in motion (with force and weight) are propelled through space. How the variety of beings in the physical world evolved (to some various extent) the capabilities to adapt to terrain, to adjust speed, vary their weight and to do many of these adjustable movements while performing other tasks.
When I saw this video I realized that I had found my subject:

Though I may not be specifically interested in the jaws of these ants, I am certainly interested in how they move and in insect locomotion in general.
So, I began reading on insect locomotion with this paper whose keywords also include (to my delight) “biomimetic, locomotion, coordination, sensory feedback, biorobotics”:

Delcomyn, Fred. “Insect Walking and Robotics” Annual Review of Entomology 49:51-70 (2004) ProQuest. Web. 03 Jan 2013.
(It can be found through here as well: http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.ento.49.061802.123257)

Particular projects/engineers in the robotics field want to create insect-inspired walking forms (for various reasons that bi-pedal robots or even quadrupedal forms may not be desireable, including the need to  design autonomous robots to tackle severely rough terrain) Biologists can, in turn, test their hypothesis about insect locomotion through working with engineers to create insect-inspired robots.

He  argues the importance of sciences outside of mechanical engineering and biomechanics, largely neurology, as extremely important to understanding insect locomotion.  He discusses the role of  understanding the neurological aspect of biological coordination and specifically how the brain affects the gait of an insect and draws a parallel to the computational design of specific robotics. He explains that roboticists wishing to make a walking many legged robot must ask themselves the same questions that biologists ask about insect locomotion.

Bassler and Buschges posited that “all rhythmic movements (in insects) are generated by central pattern generators (CPGs) whose action can be modified and adjusted by sensory (peripheral) influences.” Simply: one unit (in the brain) controls all legs of any given insect.  This referenced research is about the import of the central nervous system to locomotion as it “is capable of generating a pattern of alternating activity” in the legs of insects. 

He then discusses recent studies on the biomechanical aspects of insect locomotion and refutes the neuron-only argument, citing studies wherein insects have recovered from perturbances to gait much more quickly than can be explained by the firing of neurons (i.e. a CPG). He cites studies that show insect locomotion is instead founded in the physical characteristics and “body plan” of the insect which compensate for sensory perturbances in the rhythms of the insects’ gait.
He references, when discussing roboticists whose work falls into this realm (insect – biomimetics), Carnegie-Mellon’s Dante and Dante II.

He then begins to delve into the biomimicry of robotics, discussing everything from controlling the robot to designing its locomotion as founded in biology.

He mentions several historical components meant to simulate muscle movement, including pneumatic  devices such as McKibben actuators (a 1950’s invention intended to mimic muscle contractions.) Pictured below :

 

 

 

 

 

and can generate movement like this:

He also discusses several roboticists working in insect inspired projects:
Begin at 3:01:

Kirchner used the CPG method of motor control (Central Pattern Generation, mentioned above).
Whereas this robot (below) has no central control, as each leg has separate control networks for swing and stance:

The Quinn/Ritzmann group has a paper establishing the biometrics of cockroach locomotion as applied specifically to robotics.

(http://biorobots.cwru.edu/publications/CLAWAR04_Wei_MecharoachII.pdf)

I will gleefully be reading this next!

Delcomyn then states that it is his belief that to fully incorporate biological design in the field of robotics is impossible, even with the increase in computing powers. He states that to create a fully biomimetic robot, one must incorporate a suite of redundant sensors and actuators and linear control systems for these sensors and actuators.
The study of biomechanics as a means to biomimetic robotics is elemental to the field. He states that Quinn/Ritzmann has proven this to be the case.
He states that in order for biomimicry to be achieved, biologists, roboticists and biomechanists must all work together to construct the robot and deconstruct the biological creatures they copy, as “engineering can contribute to the study of animal behavior” as much as engineering can glean from biology.

 

After a quick search for biomechanics and music, I came across the neurologist Frank Wilson, who is known for his work involving the human hand as it relates specifically to musicianship. His 1998 book “The Hand: How Its Use Shapes the Brain, Language, and Human Culture” seems to have been well received, and if I have time I would very much like to read it early on this semester. My interests stem from music and dexterity, and being a guitarist of about fifteen years now, I find it fascinating how my hands can perform such complicated actions with minimal effort on my part. This, of course, has risen up out of many hours of practice, but nevertheless is amazing.

Frank Wilson describes his initial interest in hands and music as being sparked by watching his daughter, then twelve years old, practicing for her piano recital. He writes that he immediately began wondering how her fingers could move so quickly, and more relavent to his field, how the brain is able to control so many complex movements with such accuracy. In an article published in ‘Seminars in Neurology: Volume 9, No. 2’ (June 1989), title “Acquisition and Loss of Skilled Movement in Musicians,” Wilson described the movement of athletes and musicians to be quite similar, given the complexity and accuracy required.

Wilson wrote that a musician’s movements are categorized as ballistic movements, being that the muscles involved are fired at the onset of movement, but stop working long before the motion has completed. Like the explosion that cause a bullet to fire, ballistic movements are fast and powerful, and he argues very accurate. While usually a movement’s qualities of speed and accuracy are said to be inversely related (speed goes up and accuracy goes down), these ballistic movements are the opposite. When speed increases, accuracy is not lowered. I can attest that this is true of my own guitar playing, where my accuracy can often times be increased by playing faster.

Under the same line of thought, Wilson also wrote in this article how musicianship and athleticism are similar on the micro level, in that they both primarily involve movements towards an external entity. That is, motion and action are for the purpose of interacting with something external to the individual’s body, whether it be a piano key, soccer ball, or even the solid ground to run on. Both sports and musical performance are then the “problem of moving the body accurately at high speed to make contact with a target… whose distribution in space and time is predictable” (pg 147). This may seem to be an obvious point, but it’s something that I’ve come to realize in designing interactive pieces and instruments of my own. Using motion capture, in any form, seems to me to be a terrible interaction if not used in conjunction with some type of external object. When discussing the most beautiful forms of biomechanics, these movements are usually a reaction to some object, or another person, leaving me to think that that other entity is just as important as the body and it’s motions.

What is Biomechanics
Borelli’s De motu animalium
A Geneology of Biomechanics

Eadweard Muybridge: How modern day gait analysis started with a bet, some cameras, and a horse.

• before



• after

He’s considered by some to be the father of biomechanics. Also, the father of something else…

History of the Study of Locomotion

Present day…

Biomechanic: Using Processing for 3D Human Movement Visualization and Comparison from Greg Borenstein on Vimeo.