Re: The IBOT is Dead!
 

You know, the two main functions that everyone sites are its ability to climb stairs, and its ability to "stand up". While I am sure it was capable of much more, sometimes the extras aren't worth the cost. If given the constraints of climbing a random set of stairs, and having a "Stand" mode that raise the occupant to eye level, What would you design?

I would love to see part of this years challenge be to carry a 200 lb payload up a flight of steps.

Re: The IBOT is Dead!
 

In the long run, it's a better solution to retrofit older commercial and industrial buildings and bring them up ADA compliant standards, as that attacks the cause of the problem. Eliminate the cause, and there are no effects. But as ADA only applies to new [re]construction, it will be a while before replacement by attrition brings the majority of grandfathered buildings up to code. Add onto that the fact that ADA only applies to the United States, the potential for the iBOT to bring about positive impact on the world is still quite large. Unfortunately the steep price tag doomed it.

It's like [photovoltaic] solar power. I'm pretty sure the vast majority of people (except for the coal and oil industry barons) have no doubts about its positive impacts on electricity generation with respect to environmental sustainability and energy independence. But up until recently, the high price per kWh has doomed the technology to niche status. Now as of late, recent improvements at both ends of the spectrum - either making solar power cheaper or building higher output panels - have brought the technology closer to widespread adoption. Once the price is right, you'll see solar capturing technology on every roof outside of Seattle.

Unfortunately, it's the revolutionary technology - the ones that run full speed, blazing a new path to the future - that often proves to be the martyr, to go out in a blaze of glory. They were too much, too soon, too before their time. We can only hope someone, maybe not necessary DEKA, will pick up the pieces, and as economic feasibility allows, continue adding the technology Frankenstein-like into existing technology, as the world constantly marches forward to the drumbeat of progress. It may be a while, but someday we will have another iBOT. Maybe not in name, but in the spirit of the technology developed at DEKA. (Kind of like how the first major wave of electric cars in the 1990s, such as the GM EV1, were killed paved the way for a more sustainable second wave of hybrid, plug-in hybrid, and electric vehicles beginning to sweep the market today.)

Re: The IBOT is Dead!
 

http://www.seattle.gov/light/solar/ :p