September 30, 2022
Dear Members of the Biomechanics Community,
National Biomechanics Day has celebrated Biomechanics with live, in-lab and on-site events since 2016. Of course, most NBDs were celebrated as virtual events in 2021 and some were virtual in 2022. We were so impressed at everyone’s efforts and creativity in creating this new form of Biomechanics celebration that we now promote both live in-person and virtual events.
As we recover and re-open from the COVID-19 pandemic, we invite you to hold live or virtual events, whichever best suits your local situation for NBD 2023. WE also take this moment to reaffirm our commitment to ensuring the health and safety of all NBD 2023 participants. A third option is to create a hybrid event in which the lab members are on-site to give the demonstration but your high school visitors remain offsite and join the event virtually. We did this at East Carolina University in 2021 and had great success with this model.
A hybrid NBD in which lab biomechanists demonstrate 3D motion capture to a high school group viewing the event virtually at their school.
Yes, we hope to fully return to live, educational, and fun events and perhaps by 2023 we will able to go fully live but we welcome everyone’s opinions and choices about which type of event is best for you.
Remember, the mission of The Biomechanics Initiative, Inc. and NBD is to advance Biomechanics science and education by increasing the awareness and appreciation of Biomechanics among the high-school community around the world. We now encourage participating institutions to work towards this goal by reaching out to local-area schools and determining the appropriate mechanism for your region. Let’s get students excited! Show them 3D motion capture! Ultrasound imaging of muscle fibers! EMG of active muscle! All the cool Biomechanics we do!!!
Here’s the good news: fully virtual or hybrid NBDs have the great benefit of collaborations across vast distances! You can join forces with biomechanists around your nation or across national borders to create even more memorable experiences. Let’s envision three-lab collaborations exciting young people in three different cities!
In an effort to make NBD 2023 memorable, we will showcase all NBD events happening around the world on our website as we did in 2022. We are now creating an NBD 2022 landing page containing links to Biomechanics-STEM & STEAM events, either live or pre-recorded, so that we can all share our materials. We will make it easy for you to submit any links or videos you may have showing Biomechanics that others may like to use.
Let’s embrace all forms of NBDs and overcome the pandemic. This year we can have, “more virtual smiles on more virtual faces in more virtual Biomechanics Labs,” than ever! Please let us know if you have any questions or suggestions about virtual NBDs.
Sincerely,
Paul DeVita, Ph.D.
Founder and Director, The Biomechanics Initiative and National Biomechanics Day