National Biomechanics Day Event Report #4 - Brooklyn Vargas
11/22/2024 3:39 pm
Brooklyn Vargas at the University of Utah hosted not one but TWO National Biomechanics Day events.
The first was performed in partnership with the Society of Women Engineers and involved exhibiting an OpenCap demo for a group of Utah Girl Scouts. The students were able to ask questions and visualize their movements in the system.
The second event took place at the University of Utah’s Rehabilitation hospital and hosted high school students and U of U undergrads. They performed 9 demos, including:
- Robotic arm movement through the use of EMG
- Balance beam clinical assessment*
- Box and blocks clinical assessment*
- Peg placement clinical assessment*
- Energy transfer with a FLIR thermal camera
- Musculoskeletal ultrasound while walking on a treadmill
- Doppler ultrasound to show blood flow during rest and after muscle contractions
- Head and neck exoskeleton
- Biofeedback with IMUs
The demos with the * symbol represent demos that they ran as competitions! The competitions were one of the most popular parts of the day. Students were scored in each, and the top 3 were given prizes, which were made possible by the IWB grant! Some other favorites were the musculoskeletal ultrasound station and the robotic arm movement. Students also got to take home some University of Utah swag to remember their day.
When asked about her advice for other NBD events, Brooklyn said, “Be passionate about whatever you set out to do. Others will see your passion and be equally enthused and driven – it’s contagious!”
