'Renegade' dancers may be geniuses, says biomechanical engineers

Published: March 05, 2020

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Taylor Oldfather, a doctoral student working in Auburn's Biomechanical Engineering Lab isn't on Twitter. She's barely on Facebook. Before this week, she'd never even heard of TikTok. But after this week? She just might sign up. 

There's just so much data to work with. When first approached with the idea to map the moves of the latest social media dance challenge via motion capture, Oldfather wasn't exactly expecting to find anything scientifically interesting. It was supposed to be mostly for fun. But when lab workers suited students with reflective markers, cranked up the music, and hit record, she did a double take.

"See that right hip flexion peak at the end?" she said. "The max moment comes before the maximum knee flexion, because the body has to overcome the inertial properties of the leg. I mean, it's fast, but to have that happen, you'd actually have to initiate that movement while you're in the middle of the previous movement."

Nailing the Renegade Challenge kind of takes some brains. Read more at https://www.eng.auburn.edu/news/2020/03/biomechanics-of-the-renegade-challenge.html.

Submitted by: Jeremy Henderson