National Biomechanics Day is the long running, Biomechanics Stem and STEAM (A for Arts) outreach program occuring around the world. While we started in the United States in 2016, by the following year, Biomechanists from around the world held NBD events. And what is an NBD event? Simple, it is a fun day of biomechanics science shown to high school students. To date this year, we have introduced biomechanics to over 3,500 high school students and since our inception, over 35,000 high school students have enjoyed NBD celebrations in 37 countries. We have billions of great photos and videos (possibly more) from these events on our Archives page for you to enjoy.
The past two years, NBD has become part of the Biomechanics Firmament, as we like to say. This is because we are now distributing grants to Biomechanics students to help them create NBD events but also to help them develop their biomechanics kills and knowledge by supporting their travel to biomechanics conferences. We have distributed over 30 grants valued at about $30,000 to students in 18 countries. The grant programs have so far centered on communities typically underserved in the sciences. This year we sponsored events supported Black, LatinX and Women in Biomechanics and also biomechanists working in the area of disability. Please see the list of 2022 programs in our website, and consider applying for an NBD grant in 2023. They will be announced very soon.
NBD also held its second, “Sponsors’ Technology Forum,” this past March. We provided an outlet for technology sponsors, those producing biomechanics instruments to show their products to biomechanists. Since we are not yet traveling as much as pre-pandemic, this outlet enabled sponsors to reach more young biomechanists and the biomechanists to learn about various companies and instruments they may want to use. The Forum and the technology manufacturers can be seen here.
And the NBD 2022 Photo of the Year...
NBD 2022 at the University of Southern California, United States. Hosted by Dr. Susan Sigward and Ms. Stephanie Guzman, NBD grant recipient NBD celebrations have a lotta everything and this photo shows the whole package: fun, amazement, smiles, laughs, and... fun!
NBD has many wonderful sponsors and we thank all of them for their continued enthusiasm in growing our science.
