Field Trip

Today we took a field trip for my cellular biomechanics class.  We've been talking a lot in lecture about car safety and what can happen in different types of crashes.  Today we met at our normal time and took two vans out to the Autoliv crash testing center, just 24km away from the university.  We spent about an hour there on a tour and learned all about how they rig up the cars to simulate different types of crashes.  We also went to the "dummy lab" where we talked and learned about the different crash test dummies.  They come in all shapes and sizes, and are specified for use in testing front end crashes, side impact, etc.  It was funny because they are all dressed in what we learned were "standard issue" clothes, including terry-cloth t-shirts and shorts, and navy issued shoes.  The baby ones were the cutest, but the fact that they didn't have faces kind of skewed their appearance a little bit.  Before leaving we also went to the seat belt testing center, where they test all different kinds of belts.  They are put through tension testing and are sprayed with different types of chemicals and stuff to see what they can withstand.  It was a fun morning and it was nice to get out of the classroom and into the real world to see how people apply some of the things we are learning about.