Class: BE209
Group: W3
Members:: Alexis Gimovsky, Sally Chia Chien Chang, Darius Lin, Hal Schwartzstein, Kelvin Tsang

Date: December, 2002

Full Text

Introduction

          According to a study done by Stephen Seiler (3), the upper body strength of males is usually 40-50% larger than that of females since female muscle mass is smaller. In another study, Kirk Cureton (2) suggests that males have higher endurance than females in physical activities due to testosterone. His research indicates that testosterone elevates the production of hemoglobin in males’ blood. Because hemoglobin is the carrier for oxygen, each liter of male blood can carry more oxygen than that of female blood. On average, the same quantity of male blood can carry about 11 % more oxygen than female blood. This research corresponds to the world records ranging from 800 m to marathon that males run about 11% faster than the females.
         When building an electronic scale, there are several important factors that have to be considered. A scale is usually accurate within its designed range and becomes less accurate when used to measure weights outside this range. The sensitivity of the scale depends also on the designed range. If the range is small, it is important to have a sensitive scale to distinguish a small difference in weights. Furthermore, the stability and precision of the scale are important. A scale that varies greatly when measuring the same weight will not be considered a ‘good’ scale. Lastly, the noise of the apparatus should be limited. All these aspects have to be considered in order to build an accurate, precise, and sensitive scale within a designed range.
The initial goal of this project was to build an accurate and precise electronic scale using a strain gauge. The scale was calibrated using human weights to find the relationship between the voltage output from the amplifier chip AD 620 and the mass of different subjects. Effects of drift and noise were investigated to test the accuracy and precision of the scale respectively. Next, the muscle forces of males and females were measured, and it was hypothesized that males would have a higher maximum force in their triceps than females. It was also hypothesized that right-handed individuals would exhibit a greater maximum force with their right triceps than with their left triceps. The endurance time of the subjects can be calculated from the measured force data, and it was hypothesized that males will have a higher endurance time using their triceps than females.