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Re: Robotic Arm video from 07 championships
Not to begin an argument, but it can be debated just how much the DEKA arm has pushed the level of technology. That having been said it is quite an achievement that DEKA did that work in less than a year.
The following links are for the Johns Hopkins University (JHU) program that was also initiated at the same time as the DEKA team.
http://www.wired.com/science/discove.../08/bionic_arm
http://www.jhuapl.edu/newscenter/pre...007/070426.asp
The DEKA team and JHU team are part of the revolutionizing prosthetics program of DARPA. The DARPA program is described at the following link:
http://www.darpa.mil/dso/thrusts/bio...rost/index.htm
The DEKA team was given the near impossible task of doing a full limb prosthetic with readily available technology within the weight and size requirements close to that of a human arm, oh and less than a year to do it. The JHU team was told to go crazy and find technology that is still in R&D and force the technology to grow into the realm that prosthetics needs. They were also given an additional year or two to do it.
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Engineering is the art of molding materials we do not wholly understand, into shapes we cannot precisely analyze so as to withstand forces we cannot properly assess, in such a way that the public has no reason to suspect the extent of our ignorance."
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