“I took 15000 steps yesterday!” – me
“Are you training to be an astronaut? or something?
you’ll have to send me a postcard when you make it to space!
3334 12th Avenue
Brooklyn N.Y.
11218
U.S.A.
Earth”
– tak
This Week’s Assignment:
Visualization of FitBit data assignment
“Visualizing the actual data from the fitbit is the requirement, correlating it with other data is just a fun aside if you get there. Look at data, try another script, play with spreadsheet graphing program.
We won’t get much into nutrition in class, but if you want to take that on, it’s great.”
– Dustyn
I wore our FitBit this week and input my food intake data into FitBit software.
Why this is important:
I often travel around the city and grab food on-the-go.
I discovered that according to the FitBit analysis, I burn 278 calories more per day than I eat, and my current intake should reduce my fat weight by 0.6 lb per week (equivalent to the weight of 2 iPhone4 !).
Conclusion:
I need to eat more so I do not lose weight!
I want to strategically figure out what I should eat for those extra ~300 calories that will give sustained energy.
* * * * * *
Energy = heat energy, kinetic/ motion energy, chemical energy (food)
heat energy you can’t recover
you can recover/ harvest kinetic/ motion energy.
* * * * * * Visualizations from FitBit * * * * * *
Feb 8 onward is my data. I tend to range between 5000- 12000 steps. 15000 was an unusual day when I went to a trade show. Heart healthy number is 10,000 steps a day! (The
American Heart Association uses the 10,000 steps metric as a guideline to follow for improving health and decreasing risk of heart disease, the number one killer of men and women in America.)
Note: More steps don’t neccessarily mean more calories.
Calorie Intake vs Burn data visualizations**
calories reported = sedentary calories (BMR) + burned calorie estimate from # steps taken
- calorie intake vs burn graph
- calorie intake vs burn pie chart
- activity assessment – I burn about 950 calories per day from physical activity.
- my activity in context: 74% of normal weight women 25-34
* Definitions needed to understand calories burned figure:
- Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR): Calories burned while at rest to sustain regular body functions, such as breathing. This number is independent of exercise done throughout the day, and is dependent on age, height, weight, gender, and other factors.
- Estimated Energy Requirements (EER): Calories you are estimated to burn based on your BMR plus calories from a typical non-exercise day, such as getting ready for work, working at a desk job for 8 hours, stopping by the store on the way home but not exercising. EER is based on a formula published by the FDA and used by other government agencies to estimate the calories required by an individual based on their age, height, weight, and gender. Your EER is greater than your BMR since your BMR only takes into account the calories burned by your body just for it to exist and does not take into account even minimal motion or activity.
- Calorie estimation enabled:
- EER is displayed if you do not have any manually logged activities or not enough logged activities to overcome the EER estimate.
- If BMR + calories from manually logged activities is greater than 80% of your EER, that calculated number is displayed.
- If EER is used, an asterisk (*) will be displayed next to your calorie burn number. Putting your mouse over the * will display a definition of calorie estimation.
- Calorie estimation disabled:
- BMR is displayed + calories from manually logged activities.
– http://www.fitbit.com/manual#section=dashboard-activity
more visualizations from our team on Tiffany’s blog: http://hsiaowen.com/biomechanics-visualization-of-fitbit-data/#more
FitBit Graphs made during last week’s class
I used the FitBit end of day 2/7, and all day 2/8 and 2/9.
I had the max movement on 2/8. I am interested to try it this upcoming week and also try to sleep with it to see how it tracks sleep and to see the data from days when I run around NYC.
Future FitBit explorations
I would like to use the FitBit better to gather more data points. Some of my sleep tracking did not register this week so I would like to improve sleep tracking as well as use the iPhone app to more accurately manually log activities, and food and water intake (most recommendations are at least 8-9 8oz glasses per day). Note: Manually logged activities replace the Tracker’s calorie estimate for that time frame.
Some specific test and data visualization ideas for future weeks:
Do I slept more consistently after drinking more water or on days when I’m more active? (Might find that insight by graphing on different axis.)
How does my FitBit performance change if:
– I am more consistently active throughout day?
– depending on different loads I carry or shoes I wear? (For example, running shoes versus fancy shoes.)
– depending on music I listen to? (Study inspired by Musicophilia by Oliver Sacks)
It would also be interesting to visualize FitBit data from people with different conditions such as patients with scar tissue or senior citizens.
+ Question for Dustyn:
Can we get FitBit Premium Access?
I think the extra data visualization and “trainer” guidance would be interesting to test over the rest of the semester.
Other measurement tools:
” If you’re a hardcore runner, biker, luger, or anything else, this is probably not the best device. A sports watch with GPS and heart-rate monitor would be far superior.” – TechCrunch
Challenge questions: what is your average stride length? How many calories do you burn per stride?
- Stride Length (walking) and Running Stride Length are calculated by default based on your other profile information (but displayed as 0).
- If your distance traveled is not close with the default values, you can calculate your stride length by walking a known distance (like a track) and counting your steps. Most tracks are .25 mile if you walk on the inside ring.
- You can also walk a straight line using a GPS to calculate the distance traveled and your Tracker to calculate the steps taken over that distance.
- To calculate using a treadmill:
- Just stand on the treadmill and hold down the button on the Tracker until it says Start.
- The Tracker will start counting your steps from 0.
- Now start the treadmill going at a normal walking speed (taking normal sized steps, not big workout steps). The longer you go, the more accurate your stride length will be.
- When you’ve gone far enough (a quarter of a mile should be okay, but the longer the better), stop the treadmill and check the steps on the Tracker. Make note of the distance traveled on the treadmill. You can also Stop the recording and the number of steps will be listed as a recording on your activity page.
- Now do the math. There are 5280 feet in a mile and 12 inches in a foot (63360 inches per mile). So the formula you need for your stride length in inches is:63360 x Miles / Steps = Stride in inchesTo calculate your stride length using a track, do the same as above but press Start when on the start line and know the distance you are walking/running (or use End_Steps – Start_Steps).If you know the distance in feet, then:12 x Feet / Steps = Stride in inches
- Repeat the above for running stride length. Just go your average running speed.
Response to “Biomechanical Energy Harvesting: Generating Electricity During Walking with Minimal User Effort”
I want to better understand the biomechanics and physics behind these ideas of how to measure load carrying, muscle work, and energy harvesting. These ideas of idea of negative and positive muscle work and metabolic costs seem potentially useful to me when I am trying to reduce the impact of bag loads on the body.
I wonder: How does low cost of harvesting of the spring-loaded backpack compare to the knee-mounted energy harvester?
Energy harvesting via human power. Limitation: focus attention on power generation at the expense of other activities.
- hand crank
- wind up
Economical energy harvesting. Harvest energy from everyday activities.
- shoe: sole compression
- backpack: spring loaded
- knee-mounted energy harvester
Cost of Harvesting (COH) = additional metabolic power required to generate 1W of electrical power
I want to start to think about my Midterm project.
Design a system to track, measure, or visualize some spatial or temporal element of gait using anything from simple FSRs in a shoe to Kinect motion tracking.
- Option 1: Functional prototype and demonstration (documentation: blog post)
means can work in a demo in class
- Option 2: Paper prototype (documentation: Report research in the form of a draft of a publication quality paper (to be continued for final). This version will have the introduction and methods, while results and discussion will be left for the final)
you have physical element, but it could be cardboard and tape- doesn’t necessary work
more about specifics of why i need to do it
underlying concepts of energy consumption
more research-y
introduction, methods-
“Look up research by Pandolf in the 70’s (and maybe 80’s) he did for the Army. He did a lot of work measuring the metabolic cost of carrying different weight backpacks for soldiers, and made predictive equations. I’m not sure what aspects you want to test about your bags and shoes, but maybe you could use something like kinect to track the movement of wearers of the bags with different weights in them. I think by default we lean forward to accommodate heavy backpack loads, but maybe good backpack design could minimize this? You could test something similar with shoes – do insoles with a heel wedge make you walk with different back angles at different loads? You could also put several force sensing resistors on the bottom of the insole and track the pressure distribution across the foot while carrying different loads.
So, there are clearly a lot of ways to go here, so I think the first step is reading some of Pandolf’s stuff and deciding on some sort of question you are interested in answering to evaluate different bags and/or shoes.”
– Dustyn
t0nnelabbiomechanics 