Japanese Engineers Build Bottle Rocket Firing Exoskeleton

Logan Westbrook

Transform, Roll Out, Etc
Feb 21, 2008
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Japanese Engineers Build Bottle Rocket Firing Exoskeleton




Six months of effort and planning went into making the rig, which is seemingly designed just for messing around in and having fun.

What would you do if you had an exoskeleton of your very own? Fight crime perhaps, or maybe wrestle alien horrors? You probably wouldn't use it to play baseball with a spring onion, or steal sodas from your friends, but then again, you're also probably not a member of the Skeletonics team.

The three-man team took six months to build the rig, from the first concept to the finished product. The goal was to extend the range of human gestures without adding motors, and using a combination of ingenuity, planning and a lot of aluminum, they achieved it with aplomb.

The first half of the video shows the design process, from the planning stages through to the rig's manufacture. The second half, however, shows what the team did with the rig after it was done, including the aforementioned vegetable sports, as well as firing off its hidden, arm-mouted rockets in a parking lot.

As the rig is unpowered, and thus doesn't make the wearer any stronger, it probably won't kick start the creation of Gundams or anything that that. It's still a very impressive piece of engineering, however, and I'd be lying if I said that I didn't want to take it out for a spin. I mean come on, it has rockets.

Source: io9 [http://io9.com/#!5780317/why-build-a-homemade-exoskeleton-to-freak-out-your-friends-of-course]






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Serenegoose

Faerie girl in hiding
Mar 17, 2009
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That is so freaking awesome. I mean, I actually think it's more impressive that they can translate that much human motion into an exosuit -without- powering it. The bottle rockets are icing on the cake. However, when they finished opening the really-slowly-opening-door the guy inside should have yelled "Get away from her you *****!" Opportunity lost.
 

Aedes

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Sep 11, 2009
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lol, oh my.

Not much you can do with that suit but seems to be fun to mess around using it. :p
 

Watchmacallit

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Jan 7, 2010
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Oh you Japanese people. Such a small country and they're going to rule the world. So sad. So, so sad.
 

similar.squirrel

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Mar 28, 2009
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Damn. I wonder if one could strap straight into that thing and be able to balance, or if it would take time to fine one's bearings?
 

Tharwen

Ep. VI: Return of the turret
May 7, 2009
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Isn't that exactly what the US army was working on making for their footsoldiers?

It's still uber-kewl.
 

Vohn_exel

Residential Idiot
Oct 24, 2008
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That is AWESOME! I have to admit though, it looks like if you accidentally lost your balance and fell forward, it could be dangerous.
 

RadiusXd

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Jun 2, 2010
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ITS PERFECT
except, it needs to be black, and have activate-able LEDS.
you know, so you can hide in darkness, then light up and make park goers pee themselves.
 

Wicky_42

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Sep 15, 2008
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Very cool, those guys obviously had a blast! Would be neat if they'd have some sort of arm movement exaggeration - longer reach or something, just to add to its functionality. But there were rockets, so all is forgiven!
 

Byere

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Jan 8, 2009
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Just a little point. As awesome as this is, I have to say I think it would have been better to have the shoulder->elbow parts of the arm longer so it reaches to his actual elbow and have the arms running more paralell to the side more than above.

Nonetheless, awesome work and brilliantly done. When can we expect mass-production to start so we can all have fun with them? (Albeit that you might need to remove the bottle rockets as some people would just use that for wrongdoing)
 

Rayne870

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Nov 28, 2010
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Daemascus said:
Power armor, o so close to being reality.
Actually there already is a powered exo suit, I can't remember who made it anymore but yeah we are getting very close :)
 

Double A

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Jul 29, 2009
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Wicky_42 said:
Very cool, those guys obviously had a blast! Would be neat if they'd have some sort of arm movement exaggeration - longer reach or something, just to add to its functionality. But there were rockets, so all is forgiven!
"Gah, I can't reach my bottle of coke... but it's ok! I have rockets!"

And he didn't even need to buy Mentos.


This is so cool. I know what's going on my Christmas list.
 

Evilsanta

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Apr 12, 2010
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That is so goddamn fucking awesome! We need to fund this guys so that we may get Gundams!