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BACK IN THE SWING: Begay spoke
about golfing after injury.
Glenn Matsumura (top); News
Service (bottom) |
junior tyler johnston is
at the front of the classroom holding a foot-long model
of an index finger. “To simulate tendons, I sewed
ribbons to cords, but I can’t bend the fingertip,”
he says, demonstrating the problem. Still wearing blue
scrubs from her morning at the Medical Center, professor
of orthopedic surgery Amy Ladd points out that the index
finger is anatomically correct because it was made from
CT scans of real bones. What it doesn’t have are
muscles and skin to stabilize it—hence the difficulty
inherent in Johnston’s group project: creating
an educational model of the hand with accurate finger
movement. Ladd praises Johnston for displaying his first,
failed attempt: the finger entombed in polyurethane
because he forgot to add the chemical that would release
it from the mold.
The course Ladd has developed is “awesome,”
says Johnston, a human biology major. In Ortho 222:
The Anatomy of Movement, 12 students from a variety
of disciplines work on four projects that produce original
research. Ladd, three additional core faculty members
and two dozen speakers take turns giving the thrice-weekly
lectures. Among them: filmmakers from Finding Nemo,
one of whom demonstrated the robotic gait that results
when animators don’t understand that walking is
initiated from the hips.
The goal of the course, Ladd says, is “to marry
art and science in the study of human movement.”
She explains that bioengineers who have an artistic
aesthetic, as well as an appreciation for grace, will
design more functional prosthetics. Conversely, a solid
foundation of biomechanics is invaluable to artists,
as it was to Leonardo da Vinci, who relied on dissection
and keen observation as a foundation to create his masterpieces.
Indeed, the course draws students from the arts, engineering
and medicine.
Senior Kelsey Twist says she was “immediately
attracted” to the course’s interdisciplinary
approach. “Not only has this class helped me understand
the way the body functions anatomically, but I believe
it has made me a better art historian and a more competitive
athlete as well,” says the varsity lacrosse player.
Twist and two classmates are at work on the most glam
student project, golf-swing analysis. PGA golfer Notah
Begay agreed to be dotted with 53 sensors that relay
him onto a computer screen in Lucile Packard Children’s
Hospital’s Motion & Gait Analysis Lab as a
stick figure swinging away. Afterward, Begay, ’94,
and his trainer, Chris Frankel, speak to the class in
a Clark Center room permeated by the smell of freshly
brewed coffee from the nearby Peet’s. Bouncing
a golf ball on a club, Begay discusses the difficult
but rewarding process of healing a torn disc in his
back through training, not surgery. “I’m
a full-blooded Native American,” he says. “I
have a lot of faith in the human body.”
The work in the gait lab revealed that Begay’s
left gluteus maximus muscle fires at a very low intensity
during the arc of his swing, suggesting more muscle
activity in thigh and leg than hip during the downswing
and impact. It’s a surprising finding. Is this
a little-used muscle that can be left to atrophy like
a tennis player’s free forearm? Or a muscle that
can be trained to give Begay a competitive edge? Continuing
this work will fall to future students.
Another project team uses the gait lab to analyze the
differences between Merce Cunningham-style dance and
traditional ballet. Dance lecturer Diane Frank is converted
to a stick figure capering across a computer screen,
followed by senior English major Jessica Goldman. Last
but not least, the ever-game Ladd appears in toe shoes
on a Saturday afternoon to generate data for the project
team. She watches Goldman’s sequence and decides
to forego the double pirouette.
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In the fourth project, senior English and math major
Grace Liu and mechanical engineering grad student Tara
Watkins are creating a standardized index to evaluate
upper-limb function in kids with cerebral palsy. To
make devices that test reach and coordination, they
learned to use the saw, planer and drill press in the
Product Realization Lab. Their camaraderie is evident
as they laugh about the guys who fed a piece of wood
into a table saw the wrong way and nearly decapitated
a bystander. Did they know each other before? “Nah,”
Watkins says, “we’re Ortho 222 friends.”
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