Standing, walking, running, and jumping on a force plate

Details are given of an inexpensive force plate designed to measure ground reaction forces involved in human movement. Such measurements provide interesting demonstrations of relations between displacement, velocity, and acceleration, and illustrate aspects of mechanics that are not normally encountered in a conventional mechanics course, or that are more commonly associated with inanimate objects. When walking, the center of mass follows a curved path. The centripetal force is easily measured and it provides an upper limit to the speed at which a person can walk. When running, the legs behave like simple springs and the center of mass follows a path that is the same as that of a perfectly elastic bouncing ball. © 1999 American Association of Physics Teachers.