Project 139

Project Summary

Nordic walking is a full-body activity that promotes improved health and activity. Nordic walking is performed using Nordic Walking Poles. Nordic walkers range from pro-athletes training for cross-country skiing during the summer to hobbyists maintaining their fitness to patients using Nordic walking during rehabilitation after an injury. There are numerous benefits to this activity, however, from a biomechanical standpoint, more data is required to examine how the use of Nordic Walking Poles leads to improved health.

The research team for this challenge is tasked with developing an instrumented Nordic Walking Pole that will be able to monitor the real-time activities and biomechanics of the athletes that participate in Nordic Walking. A suite of compact sensors will be incorporated into conventional Nordic Walking Poles and a biomechanical evaluation of the walking poles will be performed. The sensor suite will be evaluated to ensure that long-term data can be collected while using the Nordic Walking Poles. By instrumenting Nordic Walking Poles, the supervisory team led by Dr. William Gage, Dr. Gerd Grau, and Dr. Garrett Melenka will better understand the health benefits of Nordic Walking.

The ultimate goal is to track the progress of Nordic walkers and give feedback to them to improve their health and performance. This research team for this project should be interdisciplinary and might include individuals with an interest or specialization in health, biomechanics, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, and kinesiology.

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Sustainable Development Goals