Week Five - Catastrophic failure...

Week five is done and what a week! Everything went according to plan, just not mine apparently. But this is good. Is it? I hear you ask. Yes! Research is about finding what doesn't work, as it may give insight into what does. Here's this week...

Published Sep 21, 2023

Arron J Thompson

Undergraduate Physicist, University of Leeds

Liked by Amarni Newman

Welcome to week 5, currently being posted in week 10. Funny how calendars work isn't it?

This week saw the tragic demise of a close friend. Microsoft's Azure Kinect DK. It was put to rest after a much-needed upgrade in the hardware department allowed for better running of something that felt impossible to understand.

To summarise:

- The system's guides were too high level for me to understand in such a short time frame, having had no prior experience in the field.

- The system requires hardware that is far too expensive for it to be viable to continue as a method of home rehabilitation motion capture.

The system has its uses, just not for our research. It is a fantastic device and I am by no means putting it down. However for the stage of research we are in, it is not as useful as eagerly anticipated.

Anyway.

I continued to work on my Python code for the remainder of the week, having gotten to a stage where data is accepted and something does indeed get spat out at the other end. The next part of the plan was to use a statistical measure to analyze collected data against the perfect motion path detailed in week four.

I opted for root mean square error, as I wanted an error based on the difference across the entire dataset.

This worked well, as we shall discuss in the sixth and final instalment of the research blog series.

Stay tuned!

Arron J Thompson

Arron J Thompson (He/Him)

Undergraduate Physicist, University of Leeds

Hello!

My name is Arron.

I am an undergraduate Physicist at the University of Leeds, currently on the Integrated Masters Programme.

I will be completing my research in the field of robotics in medicine. More specifically, the use of motion capture data for the robotic rehabilitation of patients suffering from neurological conditions and/or trauma.

I love applications of Physics in all senses, including medicine, Formula 1 and aerospace engineering.

I am looking for contacts in the field of robotics in order to collaborate and share methods of approaching what is often the exact same fundamental problem!