Mr. Robato Comes Alive…
Friday, May 16th, 2008
Back in 1983, The band STYX had a big hit with their song Mr. Roboto..
The tune was part of the rock opera “Kilroy Was Here”.
Mr. Roboto tells the story of a rock and roll performer who escapes from a futuristic prison by overtaking a roboto prison guard and hiding inside the emptied-out metal shell…
Now—it looks like Mr. Roboto may come alive as the result of some pretty cool scientific research into exoskeletons …
Once a term that referred only to the outer skeletons that protected bugs and similar creatures, science has been working on finding ways to use powered exoskeletons to help we humans do stuff…
AN ARMY OF ONE….
This unit here has been under development for the U.S. Army for more than 6 years—and has cost millions of research dollars to date..
GARAGE BAND…
Lots of the stuff we use today began it’s life in someone’s garage workshop—and so it is with this Roboto…
Canadian inventor Troy Hurtubise has spent two years, and about $150,000 to create his exoskeleton suit he calls Trojan.
Useful for military, police and other applications—this invention shows you don’t have to have a big budget, or a fancy research lab to execute a great idea..
IT’S A HAL OF AN IDEA….
A Japanese researcher is also working on a type of exoskeleton.
He calls it HAL, which stands for Hybrid Assisted Limbs….
Among the uses for this device will be to help those who’ve lost limbs restore normal functions…
These are just a few of the research projects underway into exoskeletons that will no doubt help the man of the future dress for success…
—Steve
Link to the video and story Steve covered today on NBC-17
Add to: | blinklist | del.cio.us | digg | yahoo! | furl | rawsugar | shadows | netvouz
