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Title: The Flying Belt
Source:
[None]
URL Source: http://www.popsci.com/node/9200
Published: May 10, 2008
Author: http://www.popsci.com/node/9200
Post Date: 2008-05-10 06:29:01 by RickyJ
Keywords: None
Views: 172
Comments: 6
Tim Fofonoff, a 31-year-old grad student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, stands at the base of a 50-foot-tall, graffiti-covered rock wall just south of Boston. He´s clipped into the Atlas Powered Rope Ascender, a toaster-size battery-driven device that he and his three co-inventors built themselves. With it, he´s about to do something no one outside of a Hollywood script has done before: rappel up a wall at an astonishing 10 feet per second. He stares hesitantly for a moment at the craggy rock face, presses a small button, and darts off the ground as if he were wearing a cape. Halfway up, he lets go of the button and stops, dangling, a little out of breath-it´s been awhile since his last test, and he´s forgotten what it´s like to fly. Until now, no one has been able to build a machine that´s powerful enough to whisk a man up a rope and small enough to throw in a backpack. But the Atlas is real, and real people are begging Fofonoff´s team for one of their own. An avalanche-rescue company wants to pluck stranded skiers out of the snow. A botanist imagines speeding to the tops of old-growth redwoods. The U.S. Army has placed several orders as well. Major Rex Blair, a former company commander for a tank battalion in Iraq who has come to watch the test, talks about using the Atlas to zip in and out of terrorist-harboring caves or evacuate casualties from city streets by yanking them to rooftops. â€If you give this to soldiers, they´re going to find uses for it that no one´s thought of,†Blair says. The inventors came together to build the first Atlas in 2004 as part of an annual military-gear-invention contest at MIT called the Soldier Design Competition. Fofonoff and 24-year-old Nate Ball are the design leaders; Dan Walker, also 24, brings climbing expertise; and Bryan Schmid, 25, is the machining pro. They built the model Fofonoff holds, their latest and lightest, in just a few days. The heart of the 20-pound device is a motorized rope-winding mechanism-a wheel with a V-shaped, grooved channel that holds the rope snugly. But what makes it possible is the smart selection of compact and powerful parts. â€Until recently, it just wouldn´t have been small enough,†Fofonoff says. The team tracked down an MIT professor who founded a company that produces high-capacity lithium-ion batteries, and Ball, the gearhead, scrounged up superstrong electric motors. â€It has a greater power-to-weight ratio than a Dodge Viper,†he boasts. The group´s first two customers-the Army and a company that will use it for building maintenance-will get an ingenious device that´s also incredibly easy to master. After a few more turns, Fofonoff is rocketing up the wall with ease, looking as confident as secret agent Ethan Hunt-disguised as an engineer.
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Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 4.
#1. To: All (#0)
You are obviously a gay Wiccan.
#5. To: RickyJ (#4)
Actually, I knew you wanted to celebrate the sex and passion you enjoy with FOH. Pervert. ;-D
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#3. To: RickyJ (#1)
#4. To: Ferret Mike (#3)
Replies to Comment # 4. "You are obviously a gay Wiccan."
End Trace Mode for Comment # 4.