Exoskeleton Motorcycle: resources

Birkeley Bionics web site, the creators of the Human Exoskeleton: http://www.berkeleybionics.com/

The YouTube clip of the Human Exoskeleton: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdK2y3lphmE&NR=1

An article on Jake Loniak’s Wearable Motorcycle: http://www.popsci.com/cars/article/2008-08/wearable-motorcycle

The YouTube clip of the Wearable Motorcycle: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmHkj6nD-DU

Exoskeleton Motorcycle: A Road to the Furture

In class last Thursday, Professor Jerry showed us three clips on YouTube of interesting new innovative technologies. Among these clips were the Wearable Motorcycle, a Jet Pack, and the Human Exoskeleton. From what I gathered, these clips pointed us towards “creating for the betterment of human life”. The exoskeleton in particular has the most potential to do just that. As the clip mentioned, the Human Exoskeleton would potentially be able to help people to walk who have had difficulty walking up to the severity of paraplegics.

Other uses I could see the Exoskeleton being used for is that of transportation. If coupled with the Wearable Motorcycle, people would be able to easily carry around there vehicle on their backs! If the backpack in the Human Exoskeleton was replaced for the Wearable Motorcycle, then I believe this could be a definite possibility.

The positive effects of this technology (Exoskeleton + Wearable Motorcycle) would be:

• the reduction of air pollution cause by cars (runs on electricity)
• the transformation of parking lots into green spaces (lesser need for parking stalls)
• and normalized alternative for cars that doesn’t use fossil fuels

The negatives of implementing this could be:

• harsher injuries upon road side accidents
• and the consumer’s cost of implementing the new technology

The Wearable Motorcycle itself is a green technology because it runs on electricity rather than the fossil fuels that cars use. The initial cost of purchasing such a vehicle would be expensive, but when you factor in the amount of money needed to fill up a car every month, I can imagine the motorcycle pays for itself quite quickly.

With no carbon emissions, easy storage and accessibility, no gas fill-ups, and a system that lets you carry it virtually anywhere, implementing the Exoskeleton Motorcycle duo-system of the seems like a pretty good idea for the future of the world!