The Project
For this project, we used a linear accelerometer to analyze how people walk. The main goal was to learn how to use spreadsheet software to analyze a large amount of data.
Click here to view raw data and more graphs.
Engineering
A person's gait is how they move their limbs as they walk or run. To collect data, we used a three-axis accelerometer, a device that can measure linear acceleration in three different directions. We looked at several attributes of each subject's gait, known as dynamicity, which includes the symmetry between the left an right legs and the variability in dynamicity between different steps. By relating the periodic nature of walking to waves, we also found the stride length (which is analogous to wave length) of each subject. Using this data, we were able to create several mathematical models to predict a person's height and gender based on their gait. We measures the effectiveness of our lionear models using the coefficient of determination (R²), which measures the percent of variability in the dependent variable that can be accounted for by the independent variable.
Reflection
Through this project, I was able to further develop my spreadsheet skills. At the start of the project, I had no idea how we were going to manage thousands of data points. However, by tackling the data with spreadsheet formulas, we were able to boil it down into just the numbers we cared about. Another part of this project that went well was the teamwork. We all had faith in each other's abilities, which made it easy to split up the group and do different tasks when necessary.
Once again, my team struggled with time management. We spent too much time planning our experiment, so we were only able to run a few trials. If we had more data, we could have developed more accurate mathematical models. Another issue with this project was that one of our teammates had to work on a different project. This meant that we were doing a four person project with a three person group.
Once again, my team struggled with time management. We spent too much time planning our experiment, so we were only able to run a few trials. If we had more data, we could have developed more accurate mathematical models. Another issue with this project was that one of our teammates had to work on a different project. This meant that we were doing a four person project with a three person group.
I worked on this project with Juan Castaneda, Matthew Jones, and Nihal Nazeem.