Links to articles about Stilt Walking and PegStilts.com:
Life Is Too Short, Walk Taller!
Submitted by Michelle Snell from NW Kids Magazine written by Kricket Caffery from PegStilts.com
Excerpt:
Stilt
walking is great for co-ordination, cognitive and physical development,
balance, confidence, self-esteem, strength, and trust building, and is
an extremely interactive activity...
Excerpt: "We'd like to highlight one puppet here that has nothing to do with bugs,
but it MUST be talked about. Kricket and a few volunteers walked along
the Oregon coast last year and collected bags and bags of trash. Out
of the rubbish that people threw into the water and onto the beach- the
cups, plastic bottles, styrofoam take out containers, and foam peanuts-
she created a beautiful sea turtle puppet. It's four feet long and
impeccably constructed..." Read more of this article on the NPR Talking Science Website (click here)
A Bird's-Eye History Of Walking On Stilts
by NPR Staff
Excerpt:
"There [are] so many reasons to use stilts," Coleman says, "whether
it's marshy or swampy ground, or for agricultural uses — stringing hops
or picking fruit or pruning the trees."
Not
too long ago, shepherds in the Gascony area of southwestern France used
stilts to oversee their flocks. And fishermen in Sri Lanka still use
stilts to perch above the surf.
Bio mechanics study at Omaha University in Nebraska
Exciting news:
A pair of stilts from PegStilts.com were used for a bio mechanics study at Omaha University in Nebraska!
It's a study of the energy costs and motor skill learning of walking on stilts
This is the most recent update on the project (more photos in slide show above):
"I am just finishing up the project for
which you donated the stilts and I had a NASA fellowship to pay for my
time. I presented the work at Nebraska Academy of Science Aeronautics
& Space Science Section and the summary was published in the
Proceedings of Nebraska Academy of Science.
You can see the motion capture cameras in the
background. There are little spherical markers attached to the stilts
to track their motions in 3 dimensions. Some of the pictures didn't
turn out so well because of the fluorescent lights but there is at least
one decent picture.
I am talking to the lab director about actually starting a new
study using the stilts where the subjects just walk on the ground
(walking on the treadmill on the stilts was pretty difficult for people
with only an hour of stilt practice). If the lab director and I work
out the details of another study, we would start bringing in subjects to
collect more data this fall." ~N. Hunt
