Maker Faire Tokyo, which concluded Monday, was big a success. We’ll have a report from the event later today but in the meantime, check out this video of Project Skeletonics’ robot exoskeleton in action.
It rolls on tracks instead of walking, but this ditch-witch style tracked chassis retrofit with a pair of giant waldos is pretty much the power loader from Aliens. This video showing it in action is a great news segment from Ed Yeates of Utah’s KSL-TV, right up to the point where they start talking about the system as an “equalizer” opening up jobs to women “that might’ve otherwise been closed just based on strength issues.”
I am indebted to a commenter on yesterdayโs skeletonics post for reminding me of G. John Dick and Eric A. Edwardsโ SpringWalker spring-powered lower-body exoskeleton. Using the slightly half-baked terms I proposed yesterday, the SpringWalker is another notable example of a โpassiveโ exoskeleton, i.e. one that amplifies the speed and range of a motion, but does not actually add power. An oldie but a goodie, the SpringWalker was patented in 1991, back when the term of a US patent was still 17 years, and is thus now out of patent. [Thanks, DanYHKim!]
All the primary source material here appears to be in Japanese, in which I am sadly illiterate, but word on the street is that this is a college-level student engineering project. Itโs called Skeletonics, and I want to describe the technology as a โpassive exoskeleton,โ because it does not have any servomechanisms and just amplifies the speed and reach of the wearerโs natural movements. That would be opposed to an โactive exoskeleton,โ which, you know, would be one that actually adds power to a movement. I dunno what good it may be, but it sure looks like fun. If nothing else, you could build one and sell rides in it at the county fair. [via Hack a Day]
