HARP

Actual stick figures (wooden sticks) were built by B&F from their laborously hand calculated data as well as advanced maps (eg hysteresis curves) and calculations also measurements taken from cadavers of centers of mass of each body part. Later, widely used was strobe

lighting which made the capture of sequence easier but required other calculation gymnastics to get at reportable data.

Well, not exactly rocket science?

But it was! ==>

[Using high speed film] Dr. Sutherland worked with our trying to

catch up (to Sputnik) rocketeers using the Vanguard (above) film exam device which had 2 wheels like an Etch-a-Sketch that displayed, mechanically, X & Y of the Vanguard built in cross hairs (2 wires). Those were pencil copied and unknowingly the engineers redid what Braun & Fischer had done so long before – math wise but without the big worn flashing contraption (making clinical use impossible). Dr Sutherland, in California, worked with these measurements on films taken of kids with cerebral palsy (and other stuff as well, of course). Now we had ball park numerics of expectation for commonly seen pathologies. Now begins scientific speculation and proposing with numeric tags that can support or refute hypotheses (hypotheses without numerics is called WAG). Sometimes WAG works, but you don’t know it for sure.