Live data from Hacker News

Father builds exoskeleton to help wheelchair-bound son walk

reuters.com

21–30 of 200 posts

Re: Father builds exoskeleton to help wheelchair-bound son walk

#21

One of my favorite movies "Edge of Tomorrow" has dope exoskeletons, and while its a movie - thats where this is heading... I am surprised Boston Dynamics hasnt made one! If you converted the agility of Atlas into an exoskeleton, that would be pretty interesting...

Reminds me of matrix as well

Re: Father builds exoskeleton to help wheelchair-bound son walk

#22

This is kind of dangerous. Something like this that is not tested can pretty much kill you if it fails in anyway. You’ll just fall to the ground from about 5 ft, which is often enough to do something bad to your skull.

A helmet seems like an easy fix for that.

Re: Father builds exoskeleton to help wheelchair-bound son walk

#23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The medical device industry in France is heavily regulated and products are audited before they reach the market so you can be sure it's a risk that's been identified and remediated.

Yeah, I think the OP was really talking about this individual case. Eg, this guy put his kid in a device that could kill him (maybe). Looking back at the videos from Boston Dynamics, a ton of effort is put in to the failure mode testing. I highly doubt 1) this is dynamic, 2) failure modes were considered much.

This individual case is a medical device company in France, not some garage hacker as the title might imply. No human (except the engineers on the down-low) will have stepped foot inside the device before a very late stage in the design, possibly requiring approval for human trials, at which point all those risks will have been assessed.

Re: Father builds exoskeleton to help wheelchair-bound son walk

#24
post #20

I've been making my own, purely as a pipe-dream to have some hope of walking again, it's not easy but I'm hoping it'll be a better fit than consumer ones, and probably cheaper. I feel like we've made leaps and bounds in prosthetics this past decade but orthotics and exoskeletons haven't been following the trend for some reason. As an engineer I imagine there are some significant design constraints that make it hard b…

I've always wanted to make one that fits like spandex and uses things that mimic anatomical function, like nitinol wires to mimic muscle.

I imagine that wouldn't be very powerful.

Re: Father builds exoskeleton to help wheelchair-bound son walk

#25

I've been making my own, purely as a pipe-dream to have some hope of walking again, it's not easy but I'm hoping it'll be a better fit than consumer ones, and probably cheaper. I feel like we've made leaps and bounds in prosthetics this past decade but orthotics and exoskeletons haven't been following the trend for some reason. As an engineer I imagine there are some significant design constraints that make it hard b…

Size variation, maybe? If you're building an industrial robot you control the size precisely, but if you've got to make everything variable - and not just variable, but to be as comfortable as clothes - I can see that throwing a hell of a lot of complexity into the mix.

Re: Father builds exoskeleton to help wheelchair-bound son walk

#26

> "Ten years from now, there will be no, or far fewer, wheelchairs," he said. I wonder how much money he'll put on that.

if battery technology keeps improving, I'm not sure why that wouldn't be the case for people with long term disablities

If you're using a wheelchair due to a joint issue, as opposed to paralysis?

Re: Father builds exoskeleton to help wheelchair-bound son walk

#27
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always wanted to make one that fits like spandex and uses things that mimic anatomical function, like nitinol wires to mimic muscle.

I imagine that wouldn't be very powerful.

Why?

Re: Father builds exoskeleton to help wheelchair-bound son walk

#28
post #20

I've been making my own, purely as a pipe-dream to have some hope of walking again, it's not easy but I'm hoping it'll be a better fit than consumer ones, and probably cheaper. I feel like we've made leaps and bounds in prosthetics this past decade but orthotics and exoskeletons haven't been following the trend for some reason. As an engineer I imagine there are some significant design constraints that make it hard b…

I've always wanted to make one that fits like spandex and uses things that mimic anatomical function, like nitinol wires to mimic muscle.

In order to mimic muscle wouldn't you need the wires physically attached to your body somehow? Getting leverage with a spandex like material doesn't sound possible.

Re: Father builds exoskeleton to help wheelchair-bound son walk

#29

This is kind of dangerous. Something like this that is not tested can pretty much kill you if it fails in anyway. You’ll just fall to the ground from about 5 ft, which is often enough to do something bad to your skull.

Then don't do it. Everyone has their own level of comfort. It is disappointing to be criticized for awesome innovation by armchair advisors. Innovation and progress is necessary for humanity to continue. Fear, solves nothing. Super impressed by this dad!

Re: Father builds exoskeleton to help wheelchair-bound son walk

#30
post #19

This is inspiring. The cost can be brought down through use of soft and/or lightweight materials. For example, the use of textile based actuators. Good examples in link below: https://biodesign.seas.harvard.edu/soft-exosuits These things are not for the near term so really impressed by this story.

Dope.

You know what I am wondering, the accelerometers in phones are super small, cheap and there are some sensor systems that incorporate a ton of other sensors (whatever happened to Google's smart jacket they were making with Levis)

Anyway, it would be very interesting to have a textile with a fabric of accelerometers woven into the fabric... Solar panels on the thighs and what not to power the sensors... with a compression-heel in a shoe / boot to ad more power with every step.

Anyone know how much power an accelerometer takes and if you can wire a matrix of them together to a set of controllers that all they do is capture the telemetry from the sensors?

Check out this video on the making of accelerometers

https://www.engadget.com/2012-05-22-the-engineer-guy-shows-h...

Post reply on HN