These diverse professional people are bankrolling an anthropologist:
Dashboard designers and bra makers, jet engineers, ergonomics experts and begetters of bikinis. And even the aerospace wizards who spit out spaceships.
“It makes sense,” said Kathy Robinette, laughing. “Really.”
Robinette’s career dream is to measure people. As she chases that dream–through a project known as CAESAR (Civilian American and European Surface Anthropometric Resource)–she’ll measure more people in more ways than they’ve ever been measured before. The end product, Robinette says, will be the most complete snapshot ever taken of the outer shell of Homo sapiens.
Anthropologists want the information so they can answer some nagging questions about the development of our relatively young (41,000 years old) species. But corporate America might want it more. So far, more than 20 companies have paid $40,000 each to help finance Robinette’s $6 million project. They’re hoping to get their first detailed look at someone they desperately want to get to know better–Fred and Ethel Consumer.
“Eventually, this information will affect every individual in the country in one way or another,” said Charles Gidcumb, a senior engineer/scientist at Boeing Co.
“It’s the kind of information every consumer-product maker will be able to use,” he added. “Some effects will be immediate. Others we can’t even see yet.”
The CAESAR project got started in April. Setting up a makeshift camp at meeting rooms at Nissan Motor Corp.’s U.S. headquarters in Gardena, Calif., Robinette and her assistants began the Southern California part of their tour.
Later this year, they’ll go to places like Dayton, Ohio, to measure the balance of their American subjects. Then they’ll go to Europe, where they’ll take measurements in the Netherlands, where people generally are tall, and Italy, where people generally are short.
In all, Robinette will measure 10,300 people, creating a database with juicy statistical details about the size and shape of adult European and American bodies.
How far apart are a 35-year-old woman’s eyes? How long is a 40-year-old man’s forearm? How big is a big toe?
Eventually, researchers working in places where the average human is built a little differently, such as Asia and Africa, will be able to add to the database using similar measurements of those populations.
Ultimately, the goal is to go beyond what researchers already have an inkling of, such as the population’s general height and weight. Robinette says her mandate is to find out “more about our bodies than anybody usually thinks to ask.”
In all, the scans will create models of nearly 2,000 body parts. For product designers–and their customers–that could be huge news. Though researchers in recent years have taken a few detailed looks at specific groups of people, most products in this country are designed to fit a consumer who probably was measured inaccurately a half-century ago.
Product designers simply are hungry for a new look at their customers.
“It’s the kind of information we’ve previously been able to speculate on, but now we’ll actually know,” said Linda Urette, who helps oversee automobile ergonomics issues for Nissan.
A key issue for carmakers is airbag safety. Consumers and auto-safety groups complain that airbags aren’t as safe as they should be, in part because the bags expand too close to the person they’re supposed to protect.
Urette says by getting a better idea about the true size and shape of their customers, Nissan and other automakers could make slight adjustments to improve the situation.
Others who study the relationship between human and machine say the new knowledge about body structure will filter into virtually every industry.
Others say CAESAR could produce information that will touch a different type of comfort–the psychological kind.
It might even change people’s notions of physical perfection.
“I’d hope people will get some information that will help them feel better about themselves,” said Ellen Goldsberry, a professor of clothing and textiles at the University of Arizona.
Goldsberry oversaw the world’s last large-scale measurement of people–a look at roughly 8,000 women, ages 55 and older. Her study, conducted with traditional measuring tools, included extensive interviews with each participant.
“Practically every woman we talked to said her body was totally unique, and the changes she’d undergone were somehow unusual . . . and bad,” Goldsberry said.
“Maybe that’ll change,” she added. “At least a little.”
