Students Design Spider-Man Tech for Air Force

[CCountZero]

Didn't Mythbusters build one of those and then give up? The machine worked, but it was a hell of a lot of effort for the person to climb.

And you'd want a surface that allowed for really good seals, or plummetting may result.

I believe the issue they had with it initially was that they could only maintain suction if both cups were planted on the surface they were climbing, but deduced that they would need a vacuum for every cup to get it right. Also keep in mind that they used 4 cups total. One on each hand and one on each knee. Or at least that's what I recall.

Pretty much correct.

Adam tried to scale a building with it, but the rig failed mid-way, and he gave up from tiredness.

But, they certainly proved that it could work. As I recall, they were limited by the vacuum generator available to them, as it was indeed not powerful enough to keep the vacuum up when more than one of the cups was off of the wall.

Adam originally fell down quite a few times, leading to him discovering the above.

Looks to me like these guys basically solved the issue by just having two different vacuum generators, one for each cup.

But yeah. Mythbusters did this first.

 

[Callate]

So USU students are hard at work on stealth vacuum-cleaner technology? Maybe they should contract this out to Dyson, instead...?

Actually, I think I like the gecko-fiber idea better, if they can get that working efficiently. My understanding is that part of the problem is that it has to not only adhere, but, well, "dis-adhere" with minimal effort. The geckos make it look so easy...