Scientists make suit that give you Spidey Sense!
GREETINGS web-slingers! You may look good in lycra and have a boss that shouts at you all the time, but that’s where you and Spiderman’s similarities end… UNTIL NOW!
Clever science sods have made a suit which, sadly, doesn’t enable you to climb walls and snog Mary Jane, but probably more impressively, actually gives you Spidey Sense. That’s right – you’ll tingle at danger!
Created by Victor Mateevitsi and his colleagues at the University of Illinois, Chicago, the suit uses small robotic arms with microphones that pick up ultrasonic reflections from objects and, when an object moves closer to you, the arms press down on your body, increasing in pressure as it gets closer and closer.
Mr Mateevitsi said: “When someone is punching Spider-Man, he feels the sensation and can avoid it. Our suit is the same concept.”
In what sounds like the most fun experiment since British soldiers were given a load of acid, students were blindfolded and armed with cardboard ninja stars to throw at anyone they could sense approaching them as a test.
“Ninety five per cent of the time they were able to sense someone approaching and throw the star at them,” Mr Mateevitsi told New Scientist.
While this just sounds like fun, fancy business, the creators actually have a practical use for the suit and are hoping that this can be used by cyclists and visually impaired people to lead safer lives, which is just tremendous.
Photo: Stan Lee, standing, publisher of Marvel Comics, discusses a Spiderman” comic book cover with artist John Romita at Marvel headquarters in New York on Jan. 10, 1976. Marvel Comics are the world’s largest seller of comic books. Comic books are big business. More than 200 million are sold in the United States each year. Lee feels the human qualities of his protagonists endear them to readers. Date: 10/01/1976
Posted: 25th, February 2013 | In: Technology Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
