(Niklas Trogisch)
I spent my internship at a small company of approximately 50 employees named Qualisys. The headquarter of the company is situated in an old warehouse at the harbour of Gothenburg. Qualisys produces motion capture systems for different applications in industry or biomechanics. (Motion capture = the process of recording the movement of objects or people, that is used e.g. in filmmaking to record actions of human actors) At my first day I was warmly welcomed by my advisor Zlatko and after a short introduction he showed me round the company. My task in the three weeks was to understand the functionality of the motion capture systems and to support my advisor, a PhD student, with his experiments.
One application of the motion capture technology is biomechanics, for instance the analyses of movements of competitive sportsmen
I had the opportunity to do my own measurements in the last week and so I brooded alongside about the question what kind of motion I wanted to capture. I decided to capture a volleyball motion, particularly the movement of the fingers while setting the ball.
At the end of the experiment I had three videos of my setting technique and to my surprise the measurement was so accurate that it is possible to find faults in my setting and so to improve my technique.
All in all it was a very successful experiment and I had a lot of fun.
My internship did not only consist of work, of course. When I finished my workdays I used the remaining free time to enjoy the atmosphere of the women’s FIFA World Championships that took place in Gothenburg at this time. I could watch the matches at the huge public viewing area in the city center. Another afternoon I had the chance to play Beachvolleyball in the world’s largest Beachvolleyball- arena that is situated in Gothenburg.
Finally I can summarize that I had a brilliant stay in Gothenburg and an adventure that I won’t forget so fast. I’m thankful for the opportunities Qualisys and my advisor gave me. They introduced me to many technologies, scientific approaches and systems and spent very much time on explaining me things. Especially, I want to thank my advisor Zlatko who not only gave me the typical “internal” jobs but the chance to participate in his research and work on challenging problems.