6) Kinematic Analysis- Penguin Feet

The next step was to perform a kinematic analysis on the rotation of the penguin’s feet. The penguin’s feet are attached to the bottom of the penguin. Therefore, the angular position of the penguin’s feet are also dependent on the height of the body. A schematic of the feet is shown in Figure 12.

Figure 12: Schematic for the feet angle. The height of the body determines the angular position of the penguin’s feet.

When the height of the penguin is 0 cm, y_feet is also 0 cm. This value (y_feet) increases at the same rate as the height of the penguin. Therefore, the angle of the feet can be determined using the following equation:

(4)

Using this formula, I determined the angular position of the feet of the penguin. I used the gradient function in Matlab to determine the angular velocity and acceleration of the feet (Figure 13).

Figure 13: Penguin feet angle (degrees), feet angular velocity (degrees/s), and feet angular acceleration (degrees/s^2) versus time (s).