This year, rather than hosting our own event, we were asked by the organizers of the NC Math and Science Education Network (MSEN) to do an expo event as part of their annual MSEN Day. This event brought over 300 students from 6th through 12th grade from across the state to NC State’s campus for a day of competition, fun, and science! About half of these students rotated through our expo, having time to browse through our wide array of biomechanics-focused activities. Due to pre-planned travel, pending exams, and the event date having to be rescheduled, much of our group was unavailable to help. But Jacque, Jason, Katie, and Kyla were awesome enough to help out and did a great job engaging the students with some biomechanics.
You can learn more about the MSEN program here and National Biomechanics Day here.
Breaking Bones: we used a hand-crank 3 point bending system to show how different materials might have different properties, and how we can measure things like failure.
Kyla demonstrates how we can use a laser doppler flowmeter to measure blood flow.
A student tries to lift a pole with a 5lb bag of flower taped to it at different distances from the fulcrum to demonstrate the idea of muscle moment arm, and how that distance affects strength (force).
There were also plenty of non-OML-led activities for everyone to check out
These 3D stacking puzzles help students think about how we can make a 3D model from 2D images
A student checks out an interactive arm model to learn how muscles work together to move the arm
Demonstrating a powered exoskeleton that can be controlled with an app
Group photo
Group photo with Jacque!