 |
Robot Engineer NADIRA A HIRA
Jascha Little, RoboNexus Consumer and Entertainment Expo, Santa Clara, Calif. FROM THE MOMENT I SAW SIGOURNEY WEAVER put on her yellow forklift exoskeleton in Aliens, I thought they were pretty cool. My dad, Scott (above right), and I are both engineers, and four or five years ago, after seeing an article about people building remote-control robots to fight each other, we started competing in the field ourselves. For Servo Magazine's Tetsujin 2004 competition in October, we had the unique problem of creating—for less than $10,000 of our own money—a strong suit that fit outside the body but had the same freedom of motion that humans do and could lift 1,500 pounds. I spent every waking hour working on the exoskeleton. Over the years we've spent over $30,000 on various robots, so it's probably one of the most expensive hobbies you can have. The prize money is small, and you spend a bunch of money to go and get your toy smashed, only to spend a bunch to fix it. So I can see how people think it's silly. But as far as I'm concerned, the thrill is more than worth the investment. Photograph by Mark Richards |
|
 |
||
|
To
send us your comments, questions, and suggestions click
here |
