Last night, Mrs. TAE and I watched the excellent movie "Iron Man" and it reminded me of my early dreams of building bionic limbs. Back in college, intoxicated by my own ambitions and not yet mathematically eliminated from qualifying for med school, I had planned to enter an M.D/Ph.D. program and start my own research lab to create mechanical replacement limbs for amputees. This was all before DARPA decided to do exactly that.
Of course, the bionic limb I had built in my mind was way cooler than that rudimentary device the RIC has successfully tested. I had dreamed up actual nerve/wire interfaces, so the existing nerve ends (at the amputation point) could be mated directly to the device. For forearm amputees, I had dreamed up a "universal mount" that would allow the user to attach and detach different types of hands and tools, depending on the users requirements (think Princess Mombi from Return To Oz).
When it came down to it, I really had two major problems. One was the application of an existing or creation of a new mechanical servo to mimic muscle and apply force. The other was the source of power for the devices. I used to tell my friend Sara, who was an engineering student, that I needed her to develop a power supply that provided 10 amps of 208V 3phase power for 10 hours, and fit inside a box the size of a DVD drive. I said if she could design that, I'd buy the rights to it from her for 10 million dollars. She laughed me off, and went on to be an aerospace engineer at Boeing in Seattle.
Nevertheless, as I watched Ironman last night with my wife, I was reminded of those early dreams to build parts for amputees, and then I thought about at the RIC model and I think their problem is that they are trying to play Chopin before they learn "Chopsticks." I appreciate their efforts to turn amputees back into fully functional people; hell, that was my idea since I was in my teens, but I feel like there are maybe some more practical points from which to build a knowledge base (that wouldn't require quite so much DOD funding).
Just to make a point, cars weren't invented as cars. The internal combustion engine, the differential gear set, the wheel and axle, steering, brakes, and roads were all designed and created independently of one another, or as gradual evolutions of a product. Daimler just was the first one to successfully package them all together into a readily marketable product. Shouldn't the same be true for something as complicated as a human limb? It took Nature something like 3.7 billion years (give or take a few hundred million) to develop the modern, opposable-thumb-equipped human arm, why should we believe we can do the same in 5 years?
Wouldn't it make a lot more sense to first just create simple forearm assist devices, that might plug into the wall for power, and help someone with degenerative joint disease do tasks that are currently too painful? They might type on the computer with no problem, but given a more strenuous task, say crushing an aluminum pop can after they finish drinking it, the force sensors located in the hand would sense a threshold had been reached and exceeded, and the mechanical arm would kick in, keeping the actual force the wearer applied below a limit by applying its own force instead.
Anyway, the point is that the development of the most successful machines in the world, be it by Nature or by Man, were done by pulling together various successful pieces and turning them into a new, advanced machine.
Mrs. TAE is going to be done with her school soon, and I mull the decision to leave my job and get my Ph.D. in this stuff, which I consider way cool.
Read this 6 page
And besides, me building a super suit in my garage makes for a way cooler story than some stuffy government program!
Speaking of Iron Man, check out this star studded cast for the sequel:
Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man
Mickey Rourke as Whiplash
Sam Rockwell as Justin Hammer
Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow
Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury
Don Cheadle as War Machine
Gwenyth Paltrow as Pepper Potts
_
0 Kommentare:
Kommentar veröffentlichen