Technical Advanced in the MA

[gmattson]

Posted with permission. GEM

From: Erin J Higgins <erhiggin@vt.edu>
Subject: building a better . . .

Hi. I'm a sophomore level engineering science student at Virginia Tech (third year, oops!), and in another year-and-a-half I start working on my "Senior Design Project," which, contrary to the "Design" part of the name, can be a research project also. My question to the CD is this: what technical advancements would you like to see in the martial arts? Where do we need more information, what needs to be built to improve training (the better makiwara, right)? For example, one idea I've had is to do a computer-simulation of the stress distribution through the bones in a fist
delivering a punch to an immovable, rigid object (which, as anyone out there who is familiar with Finite Element Analysis would know, would be EXCEEDINGLY difficult). I welcome any other theoughts. But please, please, please, for my benefit, don't reccomend some invention you've come up with. That's your idea, and you deserve to keep it. I'm looking for problems, not solutions. The solutions come after the research is done. Feel free to respond in any way you see fit -- in private, on the CD, or through a nasty letter about the evils and arrogance of engineering.

Thanks in advance,
Erin
A conclusion is what you reach when you've stopped thinking.

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Erin Higgins
erhiggin@vt.edu
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[This message has been edited by gmattson (edited 04-15-99).]