Cairo Association of Teachers - Newsletter

CAT Tracks for May 17, 2008 ROBOCAT

Okay, Law & Order features story lines "ripped from the headlines".

And, there's the old adage about "life imitating art"...comic book art? Movie art?

Last weekend, Rachel and Brother John dragged me (mildly kicking and screaming) to a rare in-the-theater movie...IRON MAN. Have to admit, I actually enjoyed it...and the movie was good too.

During the movie and related events, I was inspired!

Since the CAT officer election looms large and candidates seemed less than anxious to step forward, figured I'd secretly whip up some "suits" for the officers to wear...as they step forward to tangle with the evil forces of the "dark side". Hey, if the District sees the need (and has the luxury of using other people's money) to employ professional hit men (a.k.a. the District's high-paid attorneys) then poor, sweet, innocent CATs should have some champions of justice...

ALUMINUM CAT!

Okay, doesn't have quite the ring of invicibility as "IRON", but what do you expect on a CAT budget? We only receive hundreds of dollars each year FROM OUR MEMBERS, in comparison to the MILLIONS of dollars that the District receives each year from various levels of government. (The REAL insult is that the teachers who reside in the Cairo School District, including yours truly, actually help pay the professional hit men who bill untold hours to wreak havoc with these same poor, sweet, innocent CATs!)

Holy cat litter, Batman...I feel a rant coming on!

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, TEN!

Back to superheroes...

Yes, even took a personal day last Monday to develop a prototype of the suit...but it didn't work. (Well, I actually don't know if it works or not. You see, I modeled it after the IMPRESSIVE suit worn by Halle Berry in CAT WOMAN and as I left the house to practice leaps and bounds, the local constables intervened and suggested that I return to the Cat Cave immediately or face public exposure that would not be good for my image...or pension

Drats! The best laid plans of CATs and men!

So, back in the closet...with the suit! Guess we CATs will have to continue to win our battles the old fashioned way...RIGHT MAKES MIGHT!

Footnote to this feline frivolity...I'm thinking seriously of starting a new entry this summer in (or separate from) CAT Tracks...to be titled "CAT Got Your Tongue?" The format would be a blog which would allow me to continue my CATty commentary on the District's dastardly deeds as an X-President. (Sorry, seem to be locked into the superhero mode!)

Stay tuned!

Robotic suit amplifies human strength

(AP) -- Rex Jameson bikes and swims regularly, and plays tennis and skis when time allows.

But the 5-foot-11, 180-pound software engineer is lucky if he presses 200 pounds -- that is, until he steps into an "exoskeleton" of aluminum and electronics that multiplies his strength and endurance as many as 20 times.

With the outfit's claw-like metal hand extensions, he gripped a weight set's bar at a recent demonstration and knocked off hundreds of repetitions.

Once, he did 500.

"Everyone gets bored much more quickly than I get tired," Jameson said.

Jameson -- who works for robotics firm Sarcos Inc. in Salt Lake City, which is under contract with the U.S. Army -- is helping assess the 150-pound suit's viability for the soldiers of tomorrow.

The suit works by sensing every movement the wearer makes and almost instantly amplifying it.

The Army believes soldiers may someday wear the suits in combat, but it's focusing for now on applications such as loading cargo or repairing heavy equipment. Sarcos is developing the technology under a two-year contract worth up to $10 million, and the Army plans initial field tests next year.

Before the technology can become practical, the developers must overcome cost barriers and extend the suit's battery life. Jameson was tethered to power cords during his demonstration because the current battery lasts just 30 minutes.

But the technology already offers evidence that robotics can amplify human muscle power in reality -- not just in the realm of comic books and movies like the recently debuted "Iron Man," about a wealthy weapons designer who builds a high-tech suit to battle bad guys.

"Everybody likes the idea of being a superhero, and this is all about expanding the capabilities of a human," said Stephen Jacobsen, chief designer of the Sarcos suit.

The Army's exoskeleton research dates to 1995, but has yet to yield practical suits. Sarcos' technology sufficiently impressed Raytheon Co., however, that the Waltham, Massachusetts-based defense contractor bought Sarcos' robotics business last November. Sarcos also has developed robotic dinosaurs for a Universal Studios' "Jurassic Park" theme park ride.

Jack Obusek, a former colonel now with the Army's Soldier Research Development and Engineering Center in the Boston suburb of Natick, foresees robot-suited soldiers unloading heavy ammunition boxes from helicopters, lugging hundreds of pounds of gear over rough terrain or even relying on the suit's strength-enhancing capabilities to make repairs to tanks that break down in inconvenient locations.

Sarcos' Jacobsen envisions factory workers someday using the technology to perform manual labor more easily, and firefighters more quickly carrying heavy gear up stairwells of burning buildings. Disabled people also may find uses for the technology, he said.

"We see the value being realized when these suits can be built in great numbers for both military and commercial uses, and they start coming down in cost to within the range of the price of a small car," said Jacobsen.

He declined to estimate how much the suit might cost in mass production.

But cost isn't the only obstacle. For example, developers eventually hope to lengthen the suit's backpack battery's life and tinker with the suit's design to use less energy. Meanwhile, the suit can draw power from a generator, a tank or helicopter. And there are gas engines that, while noisy, small enough to fit into the suit's backpack.

"The power issue is probably the No. 1 challenge standing in the way of getting this thing in the field," Obusek said.

But he said Sarcos appears to have overcome the key challenge of pairing super-fast microprocessors with sensors that detect movements by the body's joints and transmit data about them to the suit's internal computer.

Much as the brain sends signals to tendons to get muscles to move, the computer sends instructions to hydraulic valves. The valves mimic tendons by driving the suit's mechanical limbs, replicating and amplifying the wearer's movements almost instantly.

"With all the previous attempts at this technology, there has been a slight lag time between the intent of the human, and the actual movement of the machine," Obusek said.

In the demonstration, the bulky suit slowed Jameson a bit, but he could move almost normally.

When a soccer ball was thrown at him, he bounced it back off his helmeted head. He repeatedly struck a punching bag and, slowly but surely, he climbed stairs in the suit's clunky aluminum boots, which made him look like a Frankenstein monster.

"It feels less agile than it is," Jameson said. "Because of the way the control laws work, it's ever so slightly slower than I am. And because we are so in tune with our bodies' responses, this tiny delay initially made me tense."

Now, he's used to it.

"I can regain my balance naturally after stumbling -- something I discovered completely by accident."

Learning was easy, he said.

"It takes no special training, beyond learning to relax and trust the robot," he said.