Slashdot Mirror
Scaling Walls With Suction Cups
tedtarg writes "What will those clever Germans think of next? The BBC has a story
on a cool device called a gekkomat. Basically a set of suction cups that let u crawl up the side of buildings... Definitely a good tool for Batman to emulate Spiderman." Scaling walls is a good super power. Now lets get on scaling buildings in a single bound.
Just what we really needed, another patent that sucks!!
Of course, you would hope they'd have a manual backup pump so you could fight the leaks until help arrived.
Hmm... anyone who works anywhere with a reasonable size data center has access to floor pullers. You could just grab a couple of those and have at!
:)
And when it's late and you start getting punchy, you really do think of things like this...
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a large vacume pump with large surface area plungers. I wouldnt' call it profound. my only problem is what happens when you half way up and you snag a line. thats like being 500 feet down and blowing a hose. and whats the practical use. window washing, utility work. how does it out way a ladder or a scafolding. and how high can you climb before yoru too tired. also what range of motion does it allow to do work. or is it strong enough to allow you to bring up equipment ??
I used to live in stormy waters, just dying of fright,
but now I've found a special hobby
and I'm doin' all right
Line from the song Suction Cup 6.1 by Sofina on mp3.com. Great tune.
(Nope, I'm not in the band, but they're local to my area and they're pretty darn good).
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Tweet, tweet.
Power skip
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Poliglut
Scaling buildings in a single bound is easy, there's lots of technological solutions that can launch a 75kg mass over a large building. Surviving the impact on the other side, THAT is the hard part!
It's a bird, it's a plane, it's...
a smeared blob of flesh, bone and muscle.
Silly Rabbit, sigs are for kids.
Sorta brings a whole new level of meaning to the term Blue Screen Of Death, doesn't it?
I'd be seriously worried about any highrise window that couldn't support a mere 230 pounds. Consider that such windows (especially the near-floor to ceiling type) have to be proof against people accidentally falling against them, and even more, proof against pressure differentials (in either direction) caused by high winds. For, say, a 5ft by 5ft window, a mere 1/10th PSI pressure differential gives you 360 pounds of force on the window -- and pressures can be quite a bit higher than this with a good wind.
Now, true enough, windows have been known to pop off of highrises in strong winds (ouch!) but rarely, and that in newer buildings where installation was sloppy.
But this whole suction cup thing has been done in countless movies and old Mission: Impossible episodes using the two-suction-cups-and-a-handle device used for pulling floor tiles in raised-floor computer rooms.
-- Alastair
one word: parachute.
-Chris
...More Powerful than Otto Preminger...
Always trying to be the superior race... First the cool pogo stick boots that let you run 45mph and jump 6 feet high, and now the ability to climb buildings. What's next? Heat vision, X-ray boobie sight, flight, invisibility?
:)
Someone stop the flow of DC and Marvel publications into that country.
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A cool gadget indeed! However, it works differently to a gecko...
A gecko does not use suction to cling to walls. Although their toes look like little suction caps, they actually cling to walls via billions of tiny hairs on the ends of their toes, not by air pressure.
--Gfunk
Send lawyers, guns, and money!
I've liberally coated the outside of my twelfth-floor office window with powdered corn-starch.
.. squitch ... squitch ... squitch ... sq --- pop!
squitch... squitch
A
H
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!
Suction cups require a pretty clean surface to work. I suppose a clever climber could carry a big vat of vaseline, and smear it over the surface to get airtight contact.
bukra fil mish mish
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Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachtani?
www.fogbound.net
Their video was very suspicius. It looks to be more of a demo of what this might look like than an actual video of some guy climbing a building.
which means: vaporware
too bad.
Point and Grunt
Point and Grunt
warnings affect one pad only. the system doesn't let you have more than one [out of 4] pads loose. therefore, at any given point, 3 are safely attached [and unlikely to lose pressure]. you would not even get up there if they were not.
;-)
as for the empire state building - you better get up there in 25 minutes. that's as long as the batteries will last
i like the "carrying capacity of 1 metric ton"...
I was kind of surprised to see the climbers using this machine didn't have on a saftey line - so they must trust it pretty well.
If you realize you are about to run out of air pressure then you get out your mountain climbing equipement and do it the old fashion way. I.e. hammer a bolt into the surface you are climbing and hook a line into your harness. If you are climbing a building, it *might* be hard to hammer into steel - but there is almost always some thing to grab onto in bulding structures - window ledges, etc.
-- Virtual Windows Project
The Quicktime video (Sorenson?) showing the Gekkomat in action with someone scaling a wall is here.
It's a 4.2 MB file, which I haven't had any luck playing yet.
Alex T-B
St Andrews
Since an electronic door lock could be considered a technlogical measure to control access to copyrighten material, it may be considered illegal under the DMCA.
Why only an electronic lock? Did mechanics suddenly stop being technology or something?
Yeah, really! No mechanical technology like this is perfect, any more than the outsides of buildings are uniform or nececcarily able to stand the kind of shear forces this must generate.
It looks cool, but it strikes me as dangerous as hell - there's no way I'd personally try it.
Imagine if the AYBABTU trolls get ahold of this. All Your Base will no longer be limited to the online world--we'll see it on the side of buildings, hanging from bridges, everywhere.
Then there's the peeping tom factor. One could scale Natalie Portman's apartment buildings, peeking through cracks in curtains...
It's a great day for the trolls, and a sad day for the Rest of Us.
Saw "Geekomat" instead of "Gekkomat"?
It's "geekomatic" !
Gods. I need more coffee, methinks.
Best Slashdot Co
blue scream of death, perhaps?
Best Slashdot Co
My daughter was doing that in Spy Fox: Dry Cereal months ago. Oh, wait, that's just a game.
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Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
David Niven? feh, I'd rather dress up in a black latex suit and mask and scale walls like Diabolik!
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
Hang from the celing of your boss's office. Spy on meetings.
Hang from celing of womens bathroom. Find out why they always take so long.
Hide from/ambush DBA's who want to work you to death 5 minutes before you leave.
Get a extremely large set of these, attach entire desk to celing. Work inverted all day long. pass out.
attach to airplane before takeoff. Free trip, anywhere. Hint: dress warmly, carry a parachute, just in case..
Climb buildings, save kitties, become hero of many young children.
Climb kitties, save buildings, $%*@* off PETA.
paint body like lizard. spend entire day on wall, sticking tonge out at people.
It could tell you to press your lips against the building and suck like hell!
Have you seen the guys who run this site ?
Have you been to a linux expo / tradeshow and met / walked by and laughed at these guys ?
They're geeks. They're DORKS. They don't have good haircuts, they don't shave, some might smell a little. Who doesn't ?
But -
That isn't to say they're not good people.
They are adults, but they aren't "grown ups" by a longshot.
In today's news, a German corporate spy plunged 108 stories to his death while attempting to scale New York's World Trade Center in efforts to steal business plans.
Spectators were stunned to see the German who has been identified as Wolfgang Dirk Schmidt yelling "Arschlock!!" while falling to his death.
Investigators used shovels to scoop up his remains for analysis at Quantico VA, in efforts to present a case against the German goverment for inventing what they dub as "suction cups of mass destruction."
Stay tuned
Want Root?
Since Hilda used to be a circus performer, she obviously didn't need the suction cups.
Next they'll develop telepathic powers with which to communicate with Creatures of the Sea, and claim they're all innovative.
Jack Valenti and the MPAA are to technology as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone
Whoa Taco managed to post a story without the word "porn" inside!!
Except i dont think the fall is far enough for a parachute to work, (but i dont know) and youre likely to get killed in traffic when you land.
Malcolm solves his problems with a chainsaw,
Malcolm solves his problems with a chainsaw,
And he never has the same problem twice.
When was the last time _you_ wanted to climb a building?
About 2 seconds after I saw the article ?
Who needs a real use for this thing ? It's cool as anything, and I want one now ! Hell, I want one for my cat too.
The cups used by glassiers to handle parge panes can be used on non-pourous surfaces. They will hold 2000 pounds. And are easy to release.
I could have swore that stuntmen who like to climb up the sides of skyscrapers used suction cups to maintain their grip on the side of the building.
"Misleading articles"? Sorry, but I don't see that. I read /. for a number of reasons, one of which is that I enjoy the humorous items that get posted from time to time. For serious news only, there are sites available, but /. is great for the mixture that gets presented.
Kez
I could use this to get out of company meetings!
----Quid
----Quid
Less talk, more caffeine
Seth
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
There! Satisfied?
You're using her as bait, Master!
There's been a device like that for ship hull cleaning for years. It's lowered over the side, and works its way down and across, doing the chip and paint jobs ships require. It can even be used at sea on calm days when the ship is moving slowly. It beats being lowered over the side in a bosun's chair.
A well known BBC television program....
Links
-- Sorry, I can't think of anything funny to say here.
You`ve never heard of base jumping? Pretty popular, yet highly illegal. Except in some parts of the far east!
Did you read the article? Obviously not, because it specifically mentions that the primary marketing will be focused as rescue equipment. When there is a fire, an elevator is not an option. And stair wells often fill with smoke, if not people running down the stairs to get out.
One aspect of spider-man is now done. But where are the web-throwing pads at wrists, the superior strength and other features? I want them too! ;)
Everyone who makes generalizations should be shot.
I loved this part:
"If irregularities should occur despite intensive safety measures
which are built into the machine, error codes are displayed and alternatives
to solve the situation are offered by the computer."
I can see it now, halfway up the Empire State Building: Poor suction detected. Please shutdown and perform a check-disk.
Seriously, when you're halfway up a building and not generating enough suction, what suggestions can the computer offer other than "pray!" ???
The ACME company has developed new rocket-powered skates which can propell people at amazing speeds. ACME wanted to warn potential users not to use the device on curved roads near cliffs, due to numerous accidental coyote deaths.
icqqm [ICQ:11952102]
Alright, this is a kinda cool idea, and it's great that the system generates enough suction to support a metric ton...
But given that the exteriors of most modern buildings are primarily glass...it seems to limit the usability of the device.
After all, what pane of glass can support a metric ton? Hell, I weigh 180 pounds, add 50 more for the gekkopad, and that's 230. 230 pounds suspended from a pane of glass via suction on the side of a skyscraper...
Doesn't strike me as too good an idea.
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Yo soy El Fontosaurus Grande!
blog |
Why the hell was he wearing a hard hat?
Yes, I know it's far fetched....but would you not have said the same about a hyperlink being considered a violation?
It could be a burgular tool.
Just food for thought.
Fight Spammers!
Don't think you'll get much grip on that.
Yaaaaawwwn....
/.'s popularity has not grown because of its dedication to "grown up" presentation.
I really hope you don't read /. to stay on top of the technical world. /. was created to be an online community/forum for things that interested a stereotyped community, commonly refered to as geeks.
So read Ars and stop complaining. Stick to sites with are concerned with presenting material in a grown up way. Read the Wall Street Journal.
Come on, you have to admit,
Ask yourself: Do nerds not have a sense of humor? Or is it just you?
"My mother never saw the irony in calling me a son-of-a-bitch." - Jack Nicholson
. . . but your comment both sucked and blowed simultaneously
-----------------
Insert rimshot and rotten tomato throwing here
Sorry, I don't mean to flame here, but this is something I've been thinking about for a while and this seems like a good time to put it into words.
Another site I enjoy reading is Ars. They don't post as many articles per day as /. and don't have as many user comments (that could be a good thing), but their articles are usually well-researched, low-hype and well-thought out comments by the poster. Contrast that with CmdrTaco's foolish statement about "Hey--let's jump over buildings now!"
Yes, this is news for nerds. And it's mostly stuff that matters. But can't it be responsible news for nerds? And how about "stuff that matters--presented in a grown up way." I wish that authors here on /. would have a little more editorial integrity, a little more displayed smarts, and and little less of the hype and misleading articles that we've been seeing lately.
Thanks,
Daniel.
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Have fun: Join D.N.A. (National Dyslexics Association)
It would have been much cooler if instead of using a vacuum approach, they'd tried to replicate a real gecko's (almost fractal) micro cillia. The reason gecko's can walk on walls (and ceilings) is that it's feet are covered in microscopic fibres (covered in even more microscopic fibres, branching to every more microscopic fibres). "Gecko Samui" - best surf clothing on ChaWeng Beach, Koh Samui, Thailand.
+++ BASELINE REALITY FAILURE+++ +++ PLEASE REBOOT UNIVERSE +++
This was the first thing that popped into my brain. Nice work.
Check out the article mentioned in the initial posting - Tommorow's World is the source.
This reminds me of an episode of LA Law where some loon thought he was a superhero lizard man and climbed up the wall in the court room and fell off because someone put holes in his suction cups. Thought I'd share.
plop
Just keep your eyes open for Clouseau. He is obviously some kind of genius to be so unpredictable!
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Check out the Vinny the Vampire comic strip
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Gekkos are unique in that they can cling to smooth surfaces even in a vacuum. This is because they don't use suction. Instead they have hairs on the pads of their feet which branch multiple times until they are fine enough for the Van der Waal's forces in the surface's molecules to attract them.
Although the attraction of any one hair is miniscule, they add up to enough to hold the gekko in place, even when upside-down.
-deane
Gooroos Software: plugging you in to Maya
-deane
Clever?! This is nothing new. Cartoon characters have been climbing walls with suction cups for over 50 years!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/low/english/sci/tech/newsid_ 673000/673265.stm
Tom.
Oh arse
Using suction cups to climb a building has been done before.
also, scaling buildings isn't new either.
I wonder what you start thinking when you get stuck up 5 floors high, with nobody to see you and no battery life... for the whole night!!! That would be almost like this guy from Darwin awards who went flying on the chair.
P.S. My Casio camera sucks batteries even faster than this device.
[Offtopic]Casio's technical support should receive pine-apples up their asses every hour. They are the most incompetent bunch of freaks I know. 24 hours on the phone - result 0%.
http://dtum.livejournal.com
That video sucks. It makes me think it is a hoax- For some reason they shoot the climber and keep the wall off the frame -You cant see what he's climbing!, They then show some close ups of the pads moving across what could be the ground. If this is *not* a hoax than the videographer should be ashamed of themselves.
-
Starsucks
Manual suction cups for climbing windows or such have been around for quite some time. I'm wondering what they've done to those pads to allow them to get suction on surfaces like concrete. Best I could pick up for the site is that there is some level of tolerance for porousness in the surface, and if it gets too bad, it won't work. Plus, it seems the suction unit on the climbers back can keep increasing the suction as air filters into the pad. So the remaining question is "What did they do to the pads themselves to make even that possible?" and, perhaps more importantly, how durable is that modification? Does it require a coating that rubs off after a while? Does it wear down quickly?
Nevermind that I've never seen a cordless vacuum cleaner that both had good suction and decent battery life...
(Voice dripping with contempt) - Havn't you learned to rocket jump yet. I can scale cities in a single bound.
Seems to me you'd leap over a building in a single bound. Not scale it in a single bound. I could be wrong.
yvan eht nioj
And they said the design wouldn't scale.
And so it goes.
Need I say more?
Re: Supporting two people at once, plus equipment.
At the heart of the system are the suction cups, each of which can hold 250 kilograms (550 lbs).
The suction cups (all four will support ~one ton. Allowing for one failing to get proper suction, and one disengaged during moviement, you've still got ~ 1000lbs of support, plenty for carrying two large people and several hundred pounds of equipment.
Re: Weight supported by 'Gekkonaut'. The climber is only supporing his weight and the weight of the backpack gear (66 lbs), as the suction cups support themselves. During movement, the climber must also support the weight of one 'sucker'. Hard to operate and carry a person down? Yes. But if it's your only/best option, I could see it working.
Re: Why doesn't system auto-disengage available sucker? That sounds like a bad idea. Like rock climbing, this probably takes a bit of concentration, and you don't want a suction cup suddenly letting go of the wall when you're not expecting it (e.g. when you're planning your next move up a burning building's wall).
Ignoring that, my prediction is that this will be the hot 'must-have' toy this christmas. I know I want one!
-----
D. Fischer
ShoutingMan.com
I cant remember which one mind you...I think the second one (someone correct me if im wrong)...So if they try to get the patent on this good luck!
Just don't tilt too much backwards when letting go of those hand suction cups.
swoop, swoop
Help, I am falli...
splat
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Excellent! Problem is tho, um, something pushing against the building would probably push me off. Better not do it... maybe a robo-pr0tman-cam!!!
-- .sig are belong to us!
All your
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
-- .sig are belong to us!
All your
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
TW, a show here in the UK, had these on the other day. Quite cool, imo. They had a stunt man try them out, and he managed to climb 20 metres wearing them. Apparantly they're really heavy though - so i'd put the spider-man suit back in the closet, taco :)
i wish i was but oh well
Make a large pile of explosives on the sidewalk.
Place a large heavily armored box on top of the explosives
Update your last will and testament.
Crawl into the box
Close watertight lid.
Seal tightly (air holes will not be needed!)
Set off explosives.
In this case the sudden stop at the end will not kill you.
Any attempt to leap buildings in a single bound which does not involve continuous propulsion systems should have the same problem.
If you solve this problem let me know
If I recall correctly, didn't the thief on the first Superman movie had suction cups the he used to climb up glass? His worked ok, and they were smaller! I wonder if the movie industry patented their idea...they could sue the inventor for untold hundreds.
....and BASE jumpers everywhere rejoiced at the idea of climbing such great treasures as, the World Trade Center, The Arch, and other such "natural" landmarks.
Burn Hollywood Burn
This was on the BBC last night (Tommorow's World - the showcase for lame new technologies). Some poor b*****d climbed 20m up a glass wall. It was such hard work he looked about to collapse at the top. It would've been easier to get to the top by stacking up G4's.
Now I can take up the respected trade of David Niven in all those wonderful movies about the French Rivierra.
--CTH
--
--Got Lists? | Top 95 Star Wars Line
I would be kinda scared to use something like this. You are trusting your life with something that, well...SUCKS.
...All I can say is that my life is pretty strange...
Now lets get on scaling buildings in a single bound.
Ok... they were working on that one.
And that's my $0.32 (adjusted for inflation).
it would be kind of hard to hide under the spand^H^H^H^H^Hlatex superhero uniform.
There isn't much chance a fireman or whatnot is going to carry someone on their back down the face of a building with one of these things. Combined with their fire gear the weight of these items is just a bit on the high side.
Regardless I think they are neat, but I see a bigger use in inspection and construction than rescue.
Another point, why do they need the lcd displays at all? Why can't a processor simply determine if there are enough currently active supports to allow movement of any specific one? I think with some coaching and computer assist you could actually increase your ascent. Basically the computer would free the pad it wants you to move next, with enough practice you should be able to move quicker.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
I used fireman as I have a relative who is one. He has two main gripes about firefighting.
Weight of gear, and the heat because of the gear (as in you can sweat so much you pass out) - he understands the tradeoff... cause he still has his skin.
the issue is that these pads might be able to support the weight of two humans, but the human scaling the building still has to be able to do the same. That is why all rescues involve rescurers who are not required to use their strength to support both people!. At worse their strength is needed to support the person they are rescuing.
next is the fact that he has his own weight to contend with, this is not the same as standing on the ground. I don't know about you, but I guarantee it will get tiring moving those pads, and that doesn't count fact it has ZERO backup safety that cable suspended rescue persons have or those on high extension ladders... you will still need a cable suspended from above to make this acceptable to recue people
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
There appears to be a mirror here for when this site gets slashdotted.
Don't they know that if they had a quick easy buy me link they would sell hundreds of these to all the /. geeks hitting their site as we speak. I had my dredit card out and everything for this one..
... that let u crawl...
'U' is a letter, not a word. Did you really save yourself ("urself", for the Y-O- challenged) that much time by neglecting the 'Y' and 'O'?
is SPLAAAT!! shortly after, the product gets "pulled from the store shelves" so to speak.
This would be ideal for those situations where you do not have access to a ladder, but need to rescue someone. Such as window washers, or the suicidal person that had 2nd thoughts, but can't get back in. Something along those lines.
I wonder how fast a person can go using this....
blah
Geckos don't have suction cups. The clinging they do to walls is done by microscopic hairs on their feet. The hairs allow them to go up textured walls in addition to glass (even glass has tiny imperfections).
I'd love to see the window cleaner using this equipment when it starts to rain and his suction cups slide down the glass from his weight. Interesting technology, I admit, but I'll stick to scaffolding and ladders for all my wall-climbing needs.
Do you see a need for jumping of a bridge with only a rope on your feet? :)
Think about it...
Goodbye!
Taking stuff apart since 1969 (TM)
This is the best invention for peeping toms since binoculars!
"Arschlock!"? Now, that's funny, because you involuntarily posted the exact opposite of the goatse.cx link by giving an Arschloch that twist...
Finally - a remedy!
A World in a Grain of Sand / Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Infinity in the Palm of your Hand / And Eternity in an Hour.
Hey, now we can do a remake. Does anybody remember that wondeful scene, where a robber is climbing a vertical wall. What else this weirdo artifact does?
Ok, let's wait for the next greatful invention, what about a Joker's toys? Those are nice! But maybe we'll have them avaiable 15 years from now!
For me, it's ok, I just wonder if they will find a way to remake former-called-prince's music.
Don't worry, I'm to stupid [to|every]day
-=-=-=-=
I know life isn't fair, but why can't it ever be un-fair in MY favor!?
When was the last time _you_ wanted to climb a building? C'mon, isn't the elevator fast enough? I do not see the need for climbing the outside of any building. But hey I guess someone does. Maybe my mail guy can deliver my mail through the window now......
DocWatson
MessEdUp
#/var/www/v
"For safety reasons the computer, which is wired to each pad by data lines, allows only one pad to be free at a time."
5 paragraphs later:
"A further safety control: the 'gekkonaut' while in the process of climbing can only have one pad and not two or more free at a time. A chance of becoming loose and therefore falling is near to impossible."
However, a chance of being redundant is therefore great.
Anyway, who needs such devices when your FINGERTIPS will do just fine: Alain Robert -- Human Spiderman
I'd be a little concerned that a window might pop off while I'm stuck to it. Not only would you fall x number of stories, but you'd have a huge piece of glass land on you when you hit the sidewalk.
That glass is expensive to replace!!!
My .02,
My
Limekiller
A man was seriously injured today, when his "un-authorized" use of the suction cup technology left the device hanging painfully from his nether region. Authorities worked for 5 hours with the jaws of life trying to pry the suction cups away from his crotch....yes, off-topic, but think about it....some moron out there WILL try this...mark my words....or not, I really don't care...
Sent from your iPad.