National Biomechanics Day (NBD) is an event which celebrates the breakthrough science of the 21st century, with the aim to have it as part of the high school curriculum.
Biomechanics is the study of mechanical laws which relate to the movement or structure of living organisms. It helps us understand why the body responds to everyday surroundings and is majorly beneficial to health.
Founder of NBD, Paul DeVita, said in a letter online on the official website: “We have organised National Biomechanics Day, NBD, to advance Biomechanics science and education by increasing the awareness and appreciation of Biomechanics among the high school community around the world.”
The long-term goal
Occurring exclusively at university level, the overall aim of the day is to incorporate biomechanics into the high school curriculum around the world.
DeVita continued: “When Biomechanics advances by stepping back from a university-initiated to a high school-initiated discipline, more people will receive training in biomechanics, more people will enter university with an appreciation of biomechanics, and more people will ultimately choose to do biomechanics in any of its many manifestations as a career endeavour.”
NBD 2018
On 11 April of this year, National Biomechanics Day demonstrated the subject to high school students, teachers and parents. The year previous saw over 400 biomechanists in 150 labs showing the field of work to over 7,000 high school students and teachers.
According to the DeVita, this year will see NBD enable it to become the breakthrough science of the 21st century.
Schools across the United States celebrated the event and were able to use new technologies to learn how to better an athlete’s performance and decrease injury risk.
Dr Kevin Ford, a professor of physical therapy at High Point University, US, said: “We have forced platforms instrumented into the floor that measure how the forces are absorbed when you land from a jump or how you jump high, how those forces are created so we can measure that jump height.”
