Building Your Own (Functional) Iron Man Suit

Alex

With all the hoopla about Iron Man, DVICE blog wonders if we can actually build a real Iron Man suit. Step one is to check out what history has to offer, and that's Hardiman exoskeleton for humans:

Before we start building our own Iron Man suit, let’s first benefit from the experience from those who have tried this in the past. In 1965, GE (disclosure: our parent company, bless ’em) was the first to try creating an exoskeleton for humans. But the first iteration went berserk — kicking, bucking and gyrating so much, they never chanced it with a human inside. The project was scaled down to an arm that would be able to lift 750 pounds, enough to load up a bomb onto a plane on an aircraft carrier. Big problem, though: The arm itself weighed 1,500 pounds, far beyond anyone’s capacity to handle it. The idea was scrapped.

Read the rest of the entertaining article here: Link - via Gorilla Mask


Comments (4)

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Newest 4 Comments

There was a television show on last week that was about exoskeletons. I only caught it for about a minute before I had to go. Anyone know what it was? Would like to actually watch the whole thing
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either this months or last months popular science has a cover artical about this very subject:

http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2008-04/building-real-iron-man
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Perhaps, just perhaps, those not using these things are actually doing things with people. Yes, engaging in real-life, non-virtual socialization. Spending time in the physical company of their fellow humans, rather than pretending to online. You can't look into someone's eyes on Twitter. A Facebook update isn't the same as talking over tea.
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Using this graph to say that older generations aren't using social networking is the same as saying younger generations aren't using them, which is obviously false. It's an average--thus, young and old cancel out and you end up somewhere in the middle. This graph is worthless.
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I guess Bebo average age is so high because of 60yo pedofiles trying to get some teen ass

It would have been useful to know the range, the mode, and the median. As well a breakdown into quartiles, to better explain the age ranges...Yes, my Masters in Statistics is coming along swimmingly!...
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I'm proud to say I don't use any of them! Some of us are still stuck in the era of newsgroups - uk.rec.sheds is where we tend to congregate. Sublimely silly and the tea's good.
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lets just call it a statistical sample. It's not a definitive study. We all know that a certain percentage of online users don't provide an accurate age. Many do, though, and the age of those engaging in social platforms online skews higher than some conventional marketing thinking (i.e. only millenials and gen y need apply).

Most active users are not replacing real life engagement with online activity - rather, the web is being used to deepen existing connections and make new ones. (search for "face to facebook" gatherings, "tweetups" or find a group based on your interests at meetup.com)

Last, Skipweasel, I love that you're still using a newsgroup. i spent a lot of time at various alt.rec.sci.etc... :)
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I think all the ages are way off.

For instance, if the average age of Facebook is 38. that means for every 18 year old using it there are just as many 58 year olds too? I don't think so.
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My initial reaction with regard to the average age of myspace users is concerned with the common 100+ year old age bracket of users who :
1. Have no age(like bands)
2. Are character pages(Ben Franklin, Albert Einstein, etc)
3. Are people who wish to elude search(i.e. me)
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