Rock climbing has little to do with strength and everything to do with technique.
Seventeen-year-old Nicholas Britz, of Laurel, is banking on that to turn a self-developed computer program into a big marketing hit. The Hammond High School senior's project employs complex math and scientific theories to show rock climbers how to position themselves more efficiently as they ascend cliffs.
In essence, he's trying to turn the potentially dangerous, rugged and highly individualistic sport of rock climbing into a precise biomechanical science based on an analysis of the changes in torque, center of gravity, mass and force generated by climbers' bodies during ascents.
The high-school student's goal is to "view a rock climber and analyze his climb," he said. "You can actually show a more efficient path up the rock. This program could tell you which path would be better to climb."
Nicholas is in the second year of his two-year project, part of a mentor relationship he's had with a researcher at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory near Columbia. The computer program he's developing uses a three-dimensional stick figure to replicate the movements of rock climbers.
Once the program is complete, Nicholas will use two cameras to videotape climbers' movements.
Then by applying the laws of physics, he will figure out the angles of the movements and compute the energy that was exerted to make those movements. He will punch in the numbers, and the computer program will analyze whether other moves would have been better.
Nicholas got the idea for the project from his mentor, Kim Constantikes, an Applied Physics Laboratory researcher who also is an avid rock climber.
"Olympic athletes nowadays not only have trainers, but they have scientists who study their movements closely and people who try to optimize their motion," said Mr. Constantikes, who likes to scale rocks at Patapsco State Park and near the Potomac River.
"Rock climbing is very much a sport of motion. Really good climbers will describe it as vertical dance," he said.
Rock climbers go through a sequence of moves as they ascend -- like a tango. They use what's called "opposition force" -- the idea that for every move there's an equal and opposite reaction -- to maneuver themselves. A wrong hand movement risks a fall, while a right move gives the climber a more secure grip and better body position for the next transition.
Nicholas himself is an athlete, a varsity wrestler who understands the importance of center of mass and body positioning. Despite his muscular build and athletic prowess, he had a difficult time his first try at scaling a wall at a local rock-climbing gym.
"It's a very strenuous sport," he said. "You're not going to make it up a 1,000-foot-wall if you're pulling yourself all the time. The secret is in the technique. A rock climber would find that out in time, but a program like this would shorten the time."
Nicholas still must debug some computer programming problems, but he eventually wants to market his project to rock climbers so they can improve their abilities.