Hey, it's ... Gecko man, Gecko man, does almost whatever a GECKO can A graduate student at Stanford has successfully climbed a 3.7-metre glass wall using a pair of super-sticky gloves modeled on the feet of gecko lizards. Youtube Video The kit was developed at the California university with funding from Uncle Sam's boffinry headquarters DARPA. The gloves are covered with 24 little sticky pads …
"the leg pulley was doing most of the work."
what are you dribbling about? For a start there isn't a leg pulley- the climber is moving a sticky pad up with a foot platform rigidly attached, then straightening his leg to gain height. His legs are doing most of (ideally all) the work. The pads are the only thing attaching him to the wall. If you're suggesting that the climber should be climbing up using arm-power alone then you have clearly never climbed (or prussicked up a rope...).
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/3322870/Gecko-lizards-inspire-Spiderman-gloves.html
Because it looks like it's 6 years later and pretty much what they said would be ready in 3 years.
Pretty fun stuff though, I expect it'll be useful on the ISS for tools and the like. And I personally would love that backing on posters.
Even if they perfect the gripping operation so it is optimum for 'normal' building surfaces, I think they'll run into issues with the grip pads becoming clogged. Try it in the real world and the supergrip is bound to get clogged with dust and grit and become unable to make contact with the climbing surface. Possibly the next step in the technology will be 'switching off' the grip when it's not hugging a wall so crap doesn't accumulate.
The gripping solution is mainly done by a simple angle of pressure applied to the palm/toe AFAIK in Geckos.
However a muscle type "expanding/contracting" application could work. Using air pressure or just moving parts (as some have done in the past).
It may be that the idea does not scale. There are no elephants hiding in the eves of houses see...
... though there were elephant sized Sloths, they used claws not sticking palms.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
