Today, we started the day at the School of Engineering, where we listened to a presentation from Mikel, one of the members of the Oreka Balance team. His presentation focused on balance and the many different systems in the body that contribute to it. He explained how balance involves much more than just coordination and actually depends on communication between the muscles, joints, inner ear, vision, and brain. It was really interesting learning about how complex something as simple as standing upright actually is.
After the presentation, we split into groups and got the chance to try the Berg Balance Scale test ourselves. The activities were actually really fun, and it was cool getting to see how healthcare professionals evaluate balance and mobility in patients. After completing the tests, I scored a 56 out of 56, which apparently means I’m very healthy and well coordinated, so I was pretty proud of that.
After lunch, we visited the university’s rocket design team, and that was probably one of my favorite parts of the day. The team competes in competitions across Spain to design rockets capable of reaching space, which I thought was incredibly impressive. Since I’ve always loved space and anything related to it, I found the entire process fascinating. They showed us some of the engineering and testing that goes into building the rockets, and it really made me appreciate how much work and effort go into building something like that.
To finish off the day, we visited San Mamés Stadium, also known as “La Catedral,” the home stadium of Athletic Club. We were lucky enough to get a private tour of the entire stadium, which was an awesome experience. They also had a museum underneath the stadium that walked through the full history of the team and its importance to the city of Bilbao. Even as someone who does not closely follow soccer, it was easy to see how much pride and tradition the city has for the club. Overall, today was a really awesome day and ended up being one of the most memorable days of the trip so far.